7 f^ 

SOCIAL EDUCATION 



BY 

COLIN A. SCOTT, Ph.D. 

\* 

Head of the Department of Psychology, Boston 
Normal School 



GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO . LONDON 



^USKARY of GONG?iH?a« 
5 wo Cobles tteceirSii | 

JUN 2 1908 



Copyright, igo8 
By COLIN A. SCOTT 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



78.5 



g^bc jatfienaeam jgregg 

GINN & COMPANY. PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON . U.S.A. 



PREFACE 

The aim of this book is to put at the disposal of its 
readers a point of view or method of thinking rather than 
a completed system of thought. Since this point of view 
is social, it should be participated in by the pupils as well 
as understood by the teacher. The question of " methods " 
as something peculiar to the outfit of the teacher is thus 
absorbed into the larger and more practical problem of 
community life. 

The stimulus to such thinking comes from the obser- 
vation of the facts of social life as they occur in the 
schoolroom or wherever people are being educated. It is 
interesting to observe that most of the systems of educa- 
tion and their consequent "methods" have had another 
origin. Herbart's experience as a private tutor, in which 
capacity he was engaged principally with single pupils, 
doubtless gave him the important observations of fact which 
led to his theories. When Rousseau explains what educa- 
tion should be, he takes one pupil and artificially isolates 
him from the rest of the world. It was difficult for Pesta- 
lozzi to see what was actually occurring among the children 
in his charge, because his own peculiar experience as a 
child was constantly in the background of his mind and 
constantly affecting his emotions. Other writers, as Mon- 
taigne, Mill, and Herbert Spencer, have in mind to a large 
extent their own experience as individuals. Their views 
are thus largely subjective. 

[iii] 



PREFACE 

The actual facts, however, press upon us the necessity 
for social observation and explanation. Even approximately 
scientific results cannot otherwise be obtained. Children in 
the schools are always in numbers, and classes are never suc- 
cessfully taught as mere collections of separate individuals. 

The experiences described in this book are therefore noth- 
ing more than cases. They are not ideals and do not call 
for imitation. Every group for education and cooperation 
will differ from every other, just as individuals differ and 
the circumstances in which they find themselves. The point 
of view or method of thinking is the essential factor which 
makes for liberty, social cohesion, and thoroughness. These 
same educational requirements can be realized in entirely 
different forms. 

As suggested above, the experiences described are quite 
incomplete and fragmentary. Even so, they may be of 
considerable service to the reader who cares to habituate 
himself to the social point of view in education. A critical 
sketch of three famous schools is begun in Chapter III. 
This is followed by descriptions of school work, which are 
not meant to represent perfection of either method or 
attainment, but which, it is believed, succeed in showing 
some features of the social spirit more completely than do 
the three examples studied in Chapters III, IV, and V. The 
two chapters on self-organized group work aim to show the 
more general features of social organization in the school. 
The concluding chapters of the book take up some special 
themes of education and attempt to show to what extent their 
best teaching depends upon a recognition of social facts. 

The social education club, the Social Education Quarterly y 
and the social education congresses held in Boston, have 

[iv] 



A 



PREFACE 

already awakened considerable interest in the movement 
they represent, — a movement which it is safe to say is 
destined to stimulate the deepest, the most progressive, and 
the most characteristic elements in American education. 
The state and the school can avoid the evils that threaten 
them only by a more comprehensive and deeper social syn- 
thesis organically united with a freer and more thorough- 
going individual development. The aim of this book will 
not be realized if it does not add something, however small, 
to the solution of this problem. 

The pleasant duty remains to acknowledge the assist- 
ance of many teachers and pupils who have, by their coop- 
erative work and criticisms, made this book possible. It is 
only because they are now so numerous that special recog- 
nition becomes difficult and practically impossible. Of 
President G. Stanley Hall, without whose epoch-making 
work in child study the observations in this book would 
have been difficult, if not impossible, I desire to express my 
sincerest admiration. To Professor W. H. Burnham, Pro- 
fessor George H. Locke, Principal Myron T. Pritchard, and 
to my colleagues. Miss Dora Williams and Miss Katherine 
Shute, who have read the manuscript, I am deeply indebted 
for many valuable suggestions. To President Arthur T. 
Hadley, whose criticism was most profound and far-reaching, 
I am under a very special obligation. Through the courtesy 
of the publishers of the Educational Review I have been 
able to use for a part of Chapter VIII a portion of an article 

which appeared in that magazine. 

COLIN A. SCOTT 



[V] 



CONTENTS 

Pages 
CHAPTER I. THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE 

SCHOOL 1-22 

Man as a member of society. Society not formed by any one's 
intention. Society establishes the school. The return effect of the 
school upon society. Discipline in social education. The school 
as a system of causes. Crowd psychology and evolution. Marginal 
consciousness and the opinions of others. The uniformity of the 
school. Why the school is imperfectly social. False independence. 
The formation of groups. The conditions of the freedom of a 
group. The role of force. Justice and liberty. The demand for 
responsibility. The school should protect the best activities of 
groups. 

CHAPTER II. TESTS FOR THE SCHOOL 23-42 

The need for social service of a voluntary character. Dictated 
courses of study justified when they give rise to voluntary work. 
Such justification is a test that should be applied to all courses of 
study. Rough means of testing the schools from the standpoint of 
social service. How private and professional schools are tested. 
The lack of suitable tests for the public schools. Improper tests. 
Testing by means of industrial work with which other subjects are 
correlated. Criticism of correlation. The logical expansion of 
interests. What is it to indulge one's interests ? The kindergarten 
and primary grades. The significance of the circle and the group. 
Leadership of groups. To what extent do high-school pupils carry 
out the results of their work in school ? Value of testing for the 
teaching profession. Teaching a social work. 

CHAPTER III. THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — 
MONARCHY 43-57 

The social satisfaction of pupils themselves. The social motive of 
honor. Honor yielded to those above us. Honor to those on the 

[vii] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 



^! 



same level and below us. The school at Abbotsholme. The con- Pages 
trast between this school and the ordinary boarding school. The 
natural affections of boys in school. Dormitories. Cooperation in 
the making of rules. The monarchical type of honor. Responsi- 
bility to the ruler. The outdoor life of the school. The indoor 
or class-room life. How does an ideal monarchy differ from a 
democracy ? The power to create plans and direct others. 



58-77 



CHAPTER IV. THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — 
THE REPUBLIC 

The George Junior Republic. Success of the Republic. Its princi- 
ples of organization. The role played by Mr. George. Comparison 
between the Junior Republic and the state. The spontaneousness 
of real government. Voting not a mere registration of opinion. 
Voting is not for individuals but for society. The function of 
coercion. Protection and sustenance of the socially desirable. 
Excess of coercion is wasteful. Coercion ought not to be exer- 
cised by children. The industrial and economic features of the 
Junior Republic. Do the children realize the actual economic 
basis of the Junior Republic? The little society does very little 
experimenting. What are the motives which lead to the honoring 
of the policeman.? The right of children to be protected from 
economic strain. A school cannot be simply a reproduction of an 
adult society. The real cooperative elements of the Junior Re- 
public, shown in the business ventures. The school city. The 
self-direction of groups as distinguished from government. 

CHAPTER V. THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 78-101 

The Dewey school. Pragmatism. The school as a laboratory. 
Four problems worked on in the Dewey school. Whole activities 
rather than sections of work. The gap between theory and prac- 
tice. The social defects of the ordinary school. Inadequate means 
of correcting them in the Dewey school. The disadvantage of 
harking back to social successes of the past. The mistake in losing 
sight of the child's real motive and substituting for it an idea of the 
teacher's. The will or the intention of the child is the vital fact. 
Small children who set themselves to difficult and even formal tasks. 
A course of study is a teacher's tool. Leadership is necessary as 
well as cooperative obedience. Analysis of individuals versus 

[ viii ] 



CONTENTS 

analysis of groups. A contrast between the biological organism Pages 
and society. The significance of group organization in school dis- 
cipline. Punishment is disapproval of the group. Punishment 
to prevent hindrances. The role of the teacher. 

CHAPTER VI. SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK . . 102-130 

Relationship of self-organized work to the dictated work of the 
school. How this work was introduced. A printing group. Three 
cooking groups. Importance of planning beforehand what is to 
be done. How some arithmetic was needed to overcome some 
difficulties. Internal resistance within the group and how it was 
overcome. A cooking group of boys alone. A photograph group. 
The play of The Sleeping Beatity. Interest of the home. Attitude 
of the teacher. The gradual extension of the time devoted to 
self-organized work. Further cases. The relationship of the group 
to the rest of the class. The use of reading and writing. 

CHAPTER VII. SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 
{continued^ 131-169 

The building of a house by a group which involved the rest of the 
class. Care must be taken by the teacher not to displace the 
leader of the group. " Drill " and real inquiry. The element of 
risk in starting any plan. The value of criticisms and temptations 
at the early stages of a piece of work. The case of the penholder. 
A class in German. A class in American history. Group work in 
Boston. Old Pipes and the Dryad. The Charlestown High 
School. Group work in science. Marking and examinations. 
Marking and social service. Marking and scholarship. Marking 
as distributive justice. Cooperative marking. 

CHAPTER VIII. REASONING AND THE TEACHING 
OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC FROM A SOCIETARY 
STANDPOINT 170-198 

Some characteristics of inductive reasoning. The difference be- 
tween reasoning and perception. The adaptation of means to end. 
Hypotheses to be tested by the judgment of our peers. The ulti- 
mate criterion of reasoning. The survival of society. Science 
teaching. The deficiency of reasoning power in high-school 
graduates. Should the teacher say what is right and wrong in 

[ix] \ 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

reasoning? The value of hypotheses in learning. A lesson on Pages 
steam. The character of children's reasoning. The child's real 
point of view. Planning on the child's part necessary. Apper- 
ception related to reasoning. Nature study. Lesson on a bird's 
nest. Lesson on ants. Independent reasoning and social motives 
in reasonmg. Work in arithmetic. 

CHAPTER IX. READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITER- 
ATURE .^^ z: 

199-236 

Ear-mindedness and eye-mindedness. Perverse application of the 
laws of association. Service given and received the mainspring 
of progress in reading. The origin of language. The develop- 
ment of language in a child. The building up from percept to 
concept. At both these stages a social environment presupposed. 
The transition from spoken to written language. Immediate 
satisfaction necessary to a child who reads. Case of reading 
lesson in first grade. The value of expectation. Mere reading 
only the passive half of a completely social process. The value 
of the motor ride. Elocution. The necessity for a real audience. 
A case of a high-school class in reading. The value of bodily ex- 
pression in reading. The emotions in literature. Fear and love. 
The effect of tragedies. Red Riding Hood. The necessity for 
specializing in emotional expression. Story of Willie and the 
circus. Teachers must learn to interpret children at first hand. 
Children must learn to write and to read for each other. 



CHAPTER X. MANUAL ARTS: INDUSTRIAL AND 
CONSTRUCTIVE WORK 

Manual arts fundamental to life. To what extent is the manual 
worker forced to produce in obedience to the orders of others > 
Social organization a tool whose use should be taught. Man as 
a producer and man as a consumer. The school must lead as well 
as follow. Manual arts an excellent subject for the experimen- 
tation of pupils. Children naturally organize for the sake of pro- 
ducmg. The physiological side. Without social power manual 
drill IS largely wasted. Children construct material objects for 
the sake of understanding them. The test of action. Manual train- 
ing begms as a kind of dramatizing. Constructive work must 
be recovered for the soul. Material construction a part of the 

[X] 



237-259 



CONTENTS 

construction of life. The disadvantage of a strictly prescribed Pages 
course of study. The invention of " uses " by teachers for what 
children make. Consumption naturally guides production. Vaca- 
tional schools. An ethics founded on work. The effect of good 
school work on adult life. The problem of classes in America and 
private schools. 

CHAPTER XI. FINE ART 260-280 

The control of work in drawing should be in the hands of 
teachers not of artists. The correlation of drawing. The effect 
of child study. The effect of the development of art. The fault 
of separating expression from its social conditions. Young chil- 
dren's drawings are dramatizations. The parable of the attic. Art 
of the present day not accessory, but must deliver its own message. 
The problem of art expression, in the middle and upper grades. 
The child should be protected from the adult environment. Pro- 
: tection does not mean isolation. The thought or feeling which is 
I expressed. The emotion of fear and the value of the grotesque. 
I Cases of drawings representing objects feared. Art in the higher 
grades and the high school — in its higher and more restricted 
sense. Inability of young children to appreciate higher develop- 
ment of art. Economic value of art. The art museum. 

CHAPTER XII. THE EDUCATION OF THE CON- 
SCIENCE 281-298 

The feeling of being a moral cause. Imperatives and verification. 
The selection of duties. The young child's development. The 
social ground and aim of conscience. The imaged assembly of 

I persons. Conscience and honor. Egoism. Envy. Fault-finding. 
J Service. Originality and invention. Case drawn from the school. 
' The need for experimentation. The value of discussion. Busi- 

II ness. The church, the home, and the school. Cooperative pro- 
c duction the flower and the fruit of the moral life. 



ITNDEX 299-300 



[xi] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

CHAPTER I 

THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SCHOOL 

Education is a work which is not confined to the 
schools. It is an undertaking which any individual may 
engage in to a greater or less extent. Each one has at 
least himself to educate, and the most of people are inter- 
ested in trying to effect some beneficial changes in the 
minds of others. The schools are not the only definite 
social organization which pretends to educational aims. 
The church, the state, the club, the meeting, business 
concerns, and even gatherings for amusement are often 
consciously educative. Any effort which is designed to 
conserve values and develop personality makes a contri- 
bution to education. 

The school as a special organ for education must fit into 
the rest of society, must supplement it where necessary, 
and learn from it on every side. It must prepare the chil- 
dren to live the best possible lives both for themselves and 
others in the world which they are to enter. In order to 
do this the school must be adapted not only to the present 
state of society, but it must select the influences received 
and perpetuate those which are best. It must carefully 
avoid fitting children for a past or lower order of things. 

[ ' ] . 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

It must indeed do more than this, because society itself is 
constantly changing. Not only the industrial and business 
world, but the whole life of to-day is quite different from 
what it was thirty or even ten years ago. To be really 
effective the school is forced to idealize the present activi- 
ties of society, and prepare the young for a future world 
which exists only in the minds and hearts of the com- 
munity. The school at its best is a prophecy, as every 
embryo is a prophecy of a better and nobler life. j 

To be a true prophecy the school must be itself alive 
and growing. The ideals of the adult community for the 
school remain sterile if they are not welcomed and do not 
enter into the lifeblood not only of the teachers but also 
of the pupils themselves. More than this, the school itself 
must make and realize something at least of its own proph- ' 
ecy. In doing so it must necessarily draw support and 
nourishment from the adult world, and adapt itself to it, ! 
but must at the same time be permitted an independence 
of life and movement which will win the admiration and 
approval of those who maintain its existence often at a 
sacrifice to themselves. Individual parents frequently real- 
ize this attitude with their several children. The adult 
community should be able to do as much for the new 
community which they are sending onward to the unfought 
battles and the untried tasks of to-morrow. 

If there is any measure of truth in the view of the 
school as an indispensable organ of society, it is quite 
plain that some preliminary insight into the nature of this 
society, and some idea of the essential laws of its growth 
and progress, is absolutely necessary to any one who would 
wisely help in its evolution. From the mental mechanism 

[2] 



THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SCHOOL 

studied by individual psychology enough cannot be deduced. 
Education can never be a mere matter of applied psychol- 
ogy, if this term be used in the strictest sense. Soci al 
r elationshiB sjniiat be studied in themselves, and not con- 
fined to the nevertheless necessary individual mechanism 
of mind or brain. It is indeed a question, as Tarde claims, 
whether even the power to think is not itself a creature of 
communication, language, and social intercourse. 

However this may be, all the important needs and 
aspirations of man are revealed to him in his association 
with others. Without his fellow, as Aristotle said, man 
would be either a god or a brute. Except from a purely 
physical standpoint, and as representing the unity of cell 
life, man as an individual is an abstraction. His thoughts 
and ideas, his ambitions, his hopes and fears, his knowl- 
edge and morality, drive him constantly beyond the phys- 
ical organism. His real self, as every one recognizes, is 
not merely this physical organism, but includes something 
spiritual and extra-physiological. What this may be in all 
its aspects is not our present function to determine, but 
part, at least, of this reality is social and consists of his 
relationships to others. The consciousness of what worth 
a man is to others represents and measures a large part of 
his true self. Indeed, if we could discover any aspect or 
portion of ourselves which never came into contact with, 
and formed no part of, any other being, whether God or 
man, is there any of us could claim it as his own ? Our 
secret thoughts are no exception : we long to utter them 
to some one. When we know them, they have already 
clothed themselves in language of some form, unuttered 
or expressed. This language is born from our contact 

[3] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

with human beings, and is made for the purpose of com 
munication. 

Man, as we know him, is already social. The existence i 
of society, or membership in society, does not depend upon 
the will of any individual or any number of individuals. 
Society was not formed by any one's intention. Associa- 
tion itself is the primary fact and dominates and modifies 
the character of each constituent. Like the copper in 
bronze or brass, the individual plays his part in the com- 
bination. The result may be brass or bronze, depending 
on the ingredients, although in this case, since it is never 
separable, we cannot know or rightly imagine what the 
copper would be by itself. 

The truth of this is easily seen if we observe our own' 
feelings and actions in the various groups to which we 
belong. In the family we are one thing, with a group 
of friends another, in business relationships still another. 
Even when we are alone we are nevertheless in society. 
Our thoughts are still busy with others. If we think of 
ourselves, it is ourselves in relation to some social group 
or situation, either imagined or real. Sometimes, indeed, 
we are never more alone than when in the physical pres- 
ence of others, and never more in society than when alone. 

Society develops by the action of social individuals upon 
one another, but the effects of this action are, at first, 
largely unexpected and unforeseen by any individual. An 
illustration may help to make this plain. The first trail or 
pathway was worn through the woods, not because any 
one thought that a pathway would be a good thing. The 
pathway was the unlooked-for result of the frequent repe- 
tition of the same action perhaps for different personal 

[4] 



THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SCHOOL 

motives. After the pathway has once appeared it becomes 
a fact which is not dependent on any one's private voUtion. 
It may grow into a well-marked roadway or into a crooked 
city street. It has its own nature to which individuals 
who travel on it must conform. It is not simply an effect. 
It acts as a cause and produces effects in those individ- 
uals who are forced to adapt themselves to it. Individuals 
can use it or modify it only by submitting to its laws. 

The appHcation of the illustration is not difficult, since 
society may conveniently be regarded as a complex of path- 
ways which are worn into the minds and brains of human 
beings by their mutual interaction. In one form or another 
these pathways are always there. They are not made pri- 
marily by the individual owner of the brain for the accom- 
modation of the public. They are not made primarily by 
the public for their own accommodation. They are as 
much objective facts, with a nature of their own to 
which all who use them must conform, as is the pathway 
in the woods ; so long as people are in contact, which is 
always, either by word or pen, in imagination or reality, 
in pleasure or business, these pathways are being used, 
whether we will or not. 

Without doubt the individual whose brain paths are 
being used socially is conscious of the fact. But he cannot 
prevent it. It may give him pain ; the result may seem 
useless to him ; but his private wishes and private feelings 
are necessarily borne down by the coercive force of society, 
as it exists in the structure of his own mind and the action 
upon it of the minds of others. 

^ Of this coercive action of society there is no better 
example than the establishment of the school. This is not 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

an institution which proceeded from individual intention 
on the part of its members. Children did not invent the 
school. They may yield to it with a good grace, they may 
even wish to go ; but the school exists and is maintained 
independently of their attitude on the question. The 
school is primarily an effect of social action on the part of 
the community. The original cause of the school exists in^ 
the thoughts of the adult community. It has become intol- 
erable to society at large to see a child grow up without 
what are called the rudiments of education. That every 
child who is capable of it shall learn to read, to write, and 
to obey is felt to be necessary if he is to be a serviceable 
member of society. It is not primarily for his own individ- 
ual good that he is taken from his free and wandering life 
of play. It is for what society can get out of him, whether 
of a material or a spiritual kind, that he is sent to school. 

In so far as the school responds effectively to the social 
causes which maintain it, it acts as a cause itself, and pro- 
duces return effects upon society at large. This is plainly 
seen in the social effect of the present widespread ability to 
read and write. As every one knows, without this power 
modern business and industry would soon be at a stand- 
still. Our post office, our newspapers, our telegraph and 
cable systems, our railways, function as they do because 
of this general public capacity developed by the schools. 
If for no other reason than to maintain itself at its present 
status, society would be justified in compelling every one 
capable of it to learn this much. It is, however, to be 
noticed that when children in any considerable numbers 
were first sent to school and taught to read, the social 
results which we have indicated were not thought of No 

[6] 



THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SCHOOL 

one pictured our modern newspapers and our system of 
advertising, or imagined the spread of our postal service. 
These are the material expressions of objective social facts, 
which are largely the unexpected result of the action of 
the school. This, however, is simply an instance of all 
social development. The effect always turns out to be a 
cause itself, which, reacting upon the original cause, reen- 
forces and partly changes it. 

Still more fundamental and necessary than the wide- 
spread capacity to read and write is the need of social 
obedience. " It is difficult," says J. S. Mill (1), "to make a 
free and warlike people submit itself to the yoke of civil 
government." But where this has been possible, it may be 
observed, says he, that there have been three conditions 
fulfilled, — an active principle of cohesion or sympathy 
among the members of the state, a feeling of allegiance 
or loyalty, and, most important, "a system of education, 
beginning with infancy and continued through life, of 
which, whatever else it might include, one main and in- 
cessant ingredient was restraining discipline. . . . The 
entire civil and military policy of the ancient common- 
wealths was such a system of training ; in modern nations 
its place has been attempted to be supplied, principally, 
by religious teaching." 

Where, as in America, religious teaching is no longer 
associated with the state, it becomes all the more neces- 
sary that training in discipline should be directly organized 
by means of schools. If free and warlike people are to be 
properly tamed, they must be caught while young. And 
if religion is no longer to be taught, something else must 
be found to give opportunities for the exercise of submission. 

[7] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

Enough has been said, perhaps, to indicate the serious- 
ness of the problem of discipline in social education. . It 
hardly needs to be dwelt on. The typical schoolmaster is 
an embodiment of its most obvious and perhaps most 
superficial demands. He transmits the pressure of the 
causal forces of society behind him. And having done this 
much, he often thinks he has done all. But a cause, how- 
ever great and overwhelming, does nothing without its 
immediate effect. A hammer falls. If it falls upon a nail, 
it drives it in. If it falls upon an anvil, it makes a noise. 
If it falls upon a stick of dynamite, it makes a still greater 
stir. To confine ourselves to the falling of the hammer, 
and to neglect its effects, would be dangerous as well as 
unscientific. The study of the effect and its peculiarities 
is not to be ignored. 

Society establishes the school by the compulsive force 
of its demands, and it requires of the school that this com- 
pulsive force be maintained and reenforced. But the char- 
acteristic effects of the action within the school itself are 
not primarily considered in these demands, and are not 
known to society as a whole. The operation of events 
within the school is left largely to the schoolmaster. 
Society as a whole is only concerned when these effects 
begin to react as a cause. While society may profitably 
enough ask the question. To what extent does the dis- 
cipline of the school produce disciplined, loyal, and cohesive 
members of society? it is plain that the working prob- 
lems which this question raises are problems of the school 
and not of the demands of society. They are the business 
of education which begins its characteristic work just 
where the compulsory demands of society leave off 



THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SCHOOL 

Not that these educational effects would ever occur 
but for their controlling causes, but only that when these 
causes have once passed into the region of the school they 
must necessarily become modified and transformed. Indeed 
what we, as citizens of an adult community, feel about these 
questions is not directly relevant. Such feelings belong to 
the outside of the school and are but a part of the causes 
which originate and maintain it. What we feel simply as 
parents is no more relevant. Children in school, or in associa- 
tion with other children from other families, find themselves 
in different relationships and act and feel differently from 
what they do at home. A given act, a word or look, has a 
different effect upon them from what it has at home. The 
school is something more than a mere extension of the state 
or the home. It is a social combination, with social feelings, 
sentiments, and needs of its own. By constituting it at all, 
society has constituted it a social organism, certain to pro- 
duce definite social changes in the brains of its members. 

It is perhaps sufficiently evident from these considera- 
tions that the schoolmaster should be not merely a mem- 
ber of adult society, capable of transmitting its pressure to 
the school, but at the same time a specialist in education. 
He should know intimately the widest range of effects that 
can be produced in the school. He should realize that 
these are not effects which he is producing, except as a 
necessary medium and contributing cause. He should real- 
ize that the effects are written in the minds and characters, 
the actual feelings and spontaneous social actions, of the 
children themselves. 

Nor does he need to wait till the children grow up to 
study these effects. Not only what they do in school, but 

[9] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

what they do when they leave the schoolroom and are free 
to organize themselves, will tell the tale. Do they talk of 
school affairs, and in what way ? Do they loaf in parlors 
or on street corners, and find destructive mischief or idle- 
ness more fascinating than anything they have gained in 
school ? If social pathways are being worn into their 
brains, are these pathways such as the children care to 
use themselves when they come in contact with their fel- 
lows ; or do the pathways which are actually used have 
another origin, and are they of another character than 
those which the fond ideals of the schoolmaster picture or 
the interests of society require ? 

The nature of any combination or association of human 
beings is, of course, expressed by what the various indi- 
viduals do and think. The social pathways we have spoken 
of are in reality alive, and consist of thoughts, feelings, and 
actions. Sometimes it is practically the same thought that 
exists in all. A mere crowd may become possessed of a 
single idea, and may be led to do things in a moment of 
impulse, which most of its members would afterwards 
scorn or believe impossible to accomplish. When a given 
stimulus brings into the focus of consciousness of each 
individual just the same experience, and when that experi- 
ence is known to be shared, we have social action of the 
same unvarying kind, whether we are dealing with a crowd 
or with a succession of individuals. There is, of course, a 
tendency for such individuals to get together, to select the 
stimuli which make them feel alike, and thus to act as 
a crowd. 

This, however, is not the highest or most characteristic 
form of social action. The focus of consciousness is, after 

[10] 



THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SCHOOL 

all, not the whole of it. Although it is intense, it is con- 
tinually passing from one idea or impulse to another. 
Better organization means that, even while we are feeling 
the impulse that is in the focus, we have some conscious- 
ness of what is in the margin. To make this marginal 
consciousness felt, we need the stimulus of other people 
who have a different point of view, and who may have in 
their different foci of consciousness aspects of the situation 
which are not in ours at the time, but which we recognize 
as capable of being so. People related in this way, as a 
group, correspond more perfectly to the large and varied 
relations of the universe in which we live than if they all 
thought alike. 

Interestingly enough, the whole movement of civilization 
has been a gradual change from the predominance of the 
first type of organization to the second. The clan, the 
tribe, the early forms of religion, insisted first of all upon 
uniformity, and were unable to tolerate much difference of 
character and opinion. As population increased, however, 
differentiation necessarily followed ; while the division of 
labor and other functions which this permitted reacted 
favorably upon the maintenance and further increase of 
population. Modern states and nations are characterized 
by the extraordinary variety of individual character and 
capacity, which they are able not only to tolerate, but to 
turn to good advantage in maintaining their cohesion and 
stimulating their growth. 

This is evidently a most important fact for the schools 
if they are to prepare the young for the present highly dif- 
ferentiated state of society. That kind of education which 
goes no further than to make every pupil as like his neighbor 

[II] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

as possible would not seem to be best fitted to advance the 
progress of the race. 

It is, however, quite natural that the school should begin 
on this level. Until very recently there was no such thing 
as public education. The schools of early times ministered 
to a special class of the community, at least in the sense 
that those who passed through them formed a special class. 
The whole differentiated range of social capacity was not 
represented in these schools. They existed practically for 
the sake of the learned professions and the leisure class. 
In such circumstances a considerable degree of uniformity, 
since it affected but a small minority of the population, had 
no very serious drawbacks. The rest of the people were 
educated in other ways, — in the family, and through the 
trade or occupation to which they belonged. 

When schools were made a necessity for all, it was also 
quite natural that the same kind of education, more or less 
suited to a small part of the community, should be opened 
to all alike, regardless of the fact that by so doing the 
uniformity latent in the class school would be magnified to 
national proportions, and thus become quite ineffective in 
training different individuals for their various tasks in life. 
The unfortunate result has been that the masses of the 
people have had thrust upon them second-hand schools 
which were never made to their measure or adapted to 
meet their needs. 

Some consciousness of the deadly uniformity of school 
training, and its inadequacy to meet the variety of modern 
conditions, is shown in the increasing public demand for 
individuality and independence. At first sight the demand 
for obedience and the demand for individuality run counter 

[12] 



THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SCHOOL 

to each other. To the teacher who does not study closely 
the operation of these contrasting demands in their effects 
on the social organism of the school itself, they are certain 
to seem antagonistic. But since the demand for discipline 
is more ancient, as well as more obvious, while that for 
independence is of more recent growth and harder to 
understand, the average teacher does little more than 
introduce a few variations of his authority, which are 
supposed to make for independence. 

Owing to the pressure of outside social sentiment, inde- 
pendent thinking is usually held up as a great virtue in 
education, and if such a thing could come by adjuration or 
command, we should have no lack of it in the school. But 
what is the actual practice ? Work is given out or prob- 
lems enunciated, and the teacher insists that everything 
be done independently. To accomplish this, separate desks 
are used, and if the work is to be done at home, threats, 
commands, or special honor codes invented by the teacher, 
but not accepted naturally by the school, are employed to 
prevent pupils from communicating. When the exercises 
come in, the results of this "independent thinking" are 
strangely uniform. This is, of course, the real aim of the 
procedure, which originated wholly with the teacher. 

In the recitation itself the situation is usually the same. 
Here the pupils frequently raise their hands in order to 
answer questions, or, rarely, to ask them. But what they 
say depends upon what the teacher has determined that 
they shall say, and their minds are mainly occupied in 
thinking what this may be. Even when the recitation is 
not a recital of a previously learned lesson, but of the 
nature of a discussion (so-called), the teacher naturally 

[13] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

"conducts" it, rules out stray remarks, and nods his 
approval of those answers which he has been "looking for." 
It is evident that the teacher is practically the cause of all 
that is happening. No pupil is conscious, except indirectly 
or surreptitiously, of causing effects in the minds of his 
classmates. He is not using the social pathways of his 
fellows, nor are his social powers being used by them. 
Even when he is "allowed some rope," he is conscious that 
the rope is always there. However necessary and right 
such a condition of affairs may be, we need not be under 
the illusion that it is cultivating independence. 

But we are frequently told that in America, at least, we 
are coming to have too much independence, that liberty 
has become license, and individuality mere selfish individ- 
ualism. This is, again, a demand on the part of society 
which we should do well to heed. Yet we are forced to 
ask how it is possible that the school, which is so filled 
with compulsory demands that even its attempts at inde- 
pendence turn out illusory, can ever be held accountable 
for the smallest share in this increase of individuahsm } 

The answer to this is plain. If the school fails to 
develop a true individuality, a false independence will be 
likely to take its place. If pupils are brought up in exter- 
nal compulsion, the responsibilities of freedom will be 
unfamiliar to them. If they have no practice in making 
and using social pathways in the brains of their fellow 
pupils, adapted to the work of scholarship, culture, and 
worthy production of whatever kind, when they leave the 
school and are free from its coercion they naturally seek 
those pathways which they know and which they have 
been instrumental in creating. When a pupil leaves the 

[14] 



THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SCHOOL 

school we do not find him seeking social groups which 
organize themselves as the school is usually organized. 
We do not find people in offices and parlors getting up 
and asking questions to which every one knows the answer, 
or is expected to feel disgraced if he does not. The indi- 
vidual who should become seriously enamored of the ordi- 
nary school practice would find little room for himself in the 
world of real life. The particular things that are done in 
school do not cultivate even a working majority of the 
habits of action which are used in the world at large. 
This is not because the habits of action of the school are 
superior to those of the world, but simply because they are 
narrower, and better suited as a preparation to the life of 
a primitive clan than to that of a highly differentiated 
society. They are the result of the pressure of the causal 
forces of society, passed on by the teacher without consid- 
eration of the actual effects which are being created in the 
social organism of the school itself. 

In real life, on the contrary, society at its best organizes 
itself in groups in which each individual in the various 
groups to which he may belong, finds himself in contact 
with others whose weaknesses he supplements or whose 
greater powers he depends upon. The idea of such a group 
as a whole is not necessarily contained in the brain of any 
single member, and as the idea develops by social interpen- 
etration, it becomes, in all its many-sidedness, too large for 
any member to contain. The function that each plays is a 
different one, and the thought of each concerning the group 
is likewise different. And yet such groups tend to stick 
together. They exercise some form of moral constraint or 
attraction upon their constituents, who yield them an 

[15] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

obedience sufficient to maintain their cohesion for years, 
and sometimes for generations. If the school is to prepare 
for society as it is, it would be natural to expect that some 
such form of social activity, however embryonic, should be 
found as a necessary feature of its life. 
^ This, however, is a feature of organization that cannot 
come from the direct impact of outside pressure. Neither 
society as a whole, nor its personification in the teacher, 
can say : Go to ; let there be groups. Let us put so many 
in one group and so many in another. Let us select indi- 
viduals according to their capacities, and give them work 
that will be suited to their needs. No, a real social group 
cannot be reduced to a mere instrument of the teacher, a 
means or a method for accomplishing certain preconceived 
purposes. It is necessarily too many-sided for that. Nor 
can the constraint required and the obedience developed 
originate from the outside of the group. It must be a part 
of its own specific constitution and necessary to its main- 
tenance. The group must be capable of going to pieces, a 
thing it cannot do if it is to depend on the authoritative 
backing or the constraint of the teacher. Indeed, it is 
only when it can go to pieces that there is any reality in 
the effort to hold it together. It is only then that there is 
any true loyalty developed. It is only then that its mem- 
bers feel the characteristic group restraint, and submit 
their private wills for the good of the whole. True respon- 
sibility, and even obedience of the highest type, is felt only 
when the group as a whole is free. 

Such conditions of responsibility and group freedom 
must obtain wherever individuals are members of any 
group, whether in society or the school. But in so far as 

[i6] 



THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SCHOOL 

they are also members of the state, they owe a still greater 
loyalty and obedience to the sovereign group or institution 
which makes all the others possible. They should do 
nothing, as members of a group, which is foreign to the 
real purpose of the state, and the state must necessarily 
be able to check by force any attempt which would militate 
against it. The state must be held together, whether sub- 
ordinate groups are so or not. 

It is plain, however, that in present modern society this 
does not turn subordinate groups into mere agencies of the 
state. Such a kind of socialism is nowhere as yet a real- 
ized fact. At present, on the contrary, self-organized 
groups for business, for pleasure, for culture of various 
kinds, still maintain their freedom within the state. They 
are protected by it whenever force is necessary, and are 
sometimes aided and encouraged. The state, in fact, as 
sovereign and compulsory force of society, exists largely 
for this purpose. Indeed the assumption back of any state 
is always that social forces are already at work, and go on 
continuously without compulsory force or legal coercion. 
As every one knows, when widespread social sentiment is 
not behind the restrictions or commands of the state, 
action on its part soon becomes impossible. 

The modern state is thus nothing more than a kind of 
forcible reminder of what is latent in other and smaller 
groups. In such circumstances, however, the focus of 
i social consciousness tends to appear within the subordinate 
groups. The vital activities of society are carried out by 
them. The experiments which are necessary, and the risks 
which these entail, are naturally undertaken by such 
smaller groups which, it is obvious, can better afford to 

[17] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

go to pieces. Meanwhile the larger needs, representing 
the total action of all the citizens, and often remaining in 
the margin of the social consciousness of the smaller 
groups, are always embodied in the state. As the reader 
sees, this makes of the state not so much an initiator as 
an active balancer of social forces already in existence, a 
conception quite different from that of laissez faire. 

We have already pointed out the fact that compulsory 
social action is demanded in the establishment of the 
school. As an organized whole, society gives the children 
a compulsory reminder of what is really latent in them. 
It insists that they shall grow up neither ignorant nor 
rebellious. Such educated loyalty, however, is just the 
thing which, when they do grow up, they realize as most 
harmonious with their plans. If it were not so, there 
would be no justice in the demand. Force is used, but as 
soon as it is used the attempt must be made to show that 
it is justified, that it has led to a larger liberty than was 
formerly enjoyed. This attempt, indeed, sums up the 
whole of education. We may stop a crowd by force from 
traveling on a dangerous highway, but, having done so, we 
must justify the action by showing them or educating 
them to see that it is dangerous. By such a procedure it 
is felt that force has been in reality but a reminder of their 
own larger plans and true interests, — something which 
has brought into the focus of consciousness that which 
was already in the margin (2). 

But in the matter of the education of the young, when 
are they capable of appreciating this larger liberty t Must 
they wait until their majority, and have it burst upon them 
like an electric flash } Or are they able to realize some 

[i8] 



THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SCHOOL 

of it from the very beginning? If this is possible, it is 
plain that we cannot accept a mere theoretic acquiescence — 
a lip service — superficially copied from others, and not 
capable of controlling action as a self-sustaining motive. 
Liberty can only be realized by conduct, and its expres- 
sion is always self-direction, self-organization, and self- 
control. As an outcome of this, it will mean for each, if 
it means anything, the carrying out of plans which run 
beyond the individual, and which will affect other indi- 
viduals in a similar state of mind, and with whom he can 
unite in a social group. It is only in such conditions that 
the individual can be free. There-is no liberty in merely 
being quiet, in doing nothing that may involve, challenge, 
or interest others. Individual self-control must have a 
social motive. It cannot be merely negative. 

The negative view of liberty and independence is, how- 
ever, just the one which teachers are too prone to take. 
In this attitude they are at one with a considerable portion 
of the thinking public. Ever since the revolutions of a 
century ago there has been a marked tendency to regard 
the rights of the individual as separate rights, and to 
claim that an individual may do what he pleases so long 
as he does not interfere with others. The demand is an 
impossible one, and even if a person could withdraw from 
every contact that might disturb another, his very isola- 
tion would be in itseM an offense to society as a whole. 
The real meaning of the demand in practical affairs is 
social, — that is, it is always a question of the kind of 
interference ; and this is measured by the interests of the 
social group to which the individual belongs. It is the 
judgment of the social mind, not of one individual or of a 

[19] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

number of individuals as such, which determines whether 
any given action is an interference or not. There is no 
"good" action which does not interfere with the imme- 
diate focahzed plans of some one, and often with those 
of a considerable number, if progress be rapid. 

There are, of course, few teachers who do not try to 
make the individual pupil feel responsibility. But they 
work with him as an individual. At least, this is what 
they think they do. Yet an individual can no more feel 
responsibility without some social motive than a fish can 
breathe without water. In a school run on separatist 
principles the children are like fish out of their natural 
environment. Morally and socially they lie panting on the 
bank. But the teacher who works with them at least 
brings them one point of social contact, namely, himself. 
Like water in a sponge applied to the gills of fish, this con- 
tact doubtless succeeds in preventing complete dissolution. 

Not that the teacher's contact is ever to be ignored. 
Sometimes, indeed, instead of a sponge a teacher is an 
open hydrant, pouring forth wastefully what ought to be 
stimulating and life-giving contact with society, both of 
the present and of the past. The fact remains, however, 
that usually the contact is unnecessarily narrow. Ask the 
average teacher who inculcates responsibility, "To whom 
do you make the children responsible ? " The most spon- 
taneous and general answer is, "Why, of course, to me." 
Sometimes, however, reflection dictates the answer, "To 
themselves," not meaning by this anything social, but 
"each to himself" — to his own conscience as an indi- 
vidual. There is a truth in this latter answer, but only 
when its meaning is social. Practically, responsibility to 

[20] 



THE SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE SCHOOL 

self tends to break down in the schoolroom ; and the real 
source of the feeling of responsibility on the part of the 
pupil is to be found in his personal relation to the teacher, 
the demands and wishes of his parents, or, in some rare 
cases, the future, hoped-for career, with its contacts with 
the wide social life of maturity, which some children are 
capable of feeling at a fairly early age. 

Meanwhile, in all these cases there is caused a serious 
neglect of the immediate brotherhood of his companions, 
necessary for all mutual upbuilding in the essentially social 
and spontaneous work of education. The here and now of 
real help and service is sacrificed to a beyond, which, even 
when it becomes an active force, does so with less strength 
and vitality than it might naturally possess. If children 
are to be trained socially, they must feel the full effects of 
social causes, — not merely of society at large, but espe- 
cially those of the embryonic society of child life to which 
they belong. They must study these effects practically, 
and must see to what extent, as social beings, they are 
real causes themselves. It is on a basis of experience of 
this kind that they can best interpret the larger and more 
complex life of adult society and the state. 
V^^If liberty and obedience, characteristic of smaller groups 
and of a vital and focalized social character, are a possible 
combination for the young, there is no reason why it should 
be left out of the school, although this institution, even 
when of a private character, primarily represents the state. 
Social groups of adults in society at large are always in 
contact with the state, but in such a way as not to prevent 
their real freedom. In the school the teacher represents 
the state as well as society at large. If children's groups 

[21] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

are left, without definite recognition by the school, to be 
formed on the street or playground, they are left without 
proper protection and hindered in their normal growth. 
As a consequence they tend to relapse into organizations 
for mere play. And even play is not sufficiently protected. 
It is cut short on every side. Fifteen minutes here and 
half an hour there is not continuous enough for the carry- 
ing out of the best plans of which even play groups are 
capable. Lack of facilities, especially in cities, hampers 
their best development. The haphazard contact with the 
state through the policeman, or other members of adult 
society, tends to make such activities as may be under- 
taken haphazard themselves, and deficient in true social 
significance. That contact with the state, which the state 
has itself devised as being suitable for children, namely, 
the contact with an intelligent, learned, socially minded, 
and sympathetic teacher, would appear to be the only con- 
dition in which such groups could find the aid and the pro- 
tection which they need. It is only under this condition 
that we may expect them to go further than play and to 
undertake real and serious work. 

References 

1. J. S. Mill, System of Logic, Vol. II, pp. 519 ff. 

2. Compare with Bosanquet's view of society in The Philosophical 
Theory of the State, 



[22] 



CHAPTER II 

TESTS FOR THE SCHOOL 

If the school is to be judged by its success in giving 
satisfaction to present society, and in providing for the 
development of future citizens, it is necessary that there 
should be some measurement of its efforts in these direc- 
tions. Indications of this need are already seen on every 
hand, but much remains to be done to render the tests 
proposed suitable, as well as scientific and exact. 

The demand, for example, is reasonably enough made 
that pupils, when they leave the school, should be able to 
use the best advantages of the life of the community. 
They should have a taste for reading, and know their way 
about in a library. They should appreciate art, and have 
an intelligent interest in exhibitions and museums. They 
should understand music, and cooperate in extending its 
wholesome influence. The charitable, social, and ethical 
activities of the church should be better grasped by them 
because of their school experience. The newspaper should 
be read more discriminatingly, and business life be guided 
by habits previously acquired. No doubt with some pupils, 
many of these results are obtained under the guidance of 
a good teacher. But for the most part, the school as an 
institution has not provided the special arrangements which 
could secure the best results in these directions. It is felt 
that there is a gap between the school and life. No doubt 

[23] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

the pupils are often told that this higher effectiveness in 
life is what they should look forward to. But there is lack 
of opportunity in the school for the immediate practice of 
this excellent precept. When the pupil leaves the school 
his reading is no longer done at the dictation of an author- 
ity who sees to it that a certain amount of work is covered. 
No one insists that he go to an art gallery and give a 
report of what he sees. His higher ethical life in the com- 
munity will largely depend upon his own initiative and 
upon the companions with whom he voluntarily chooses to 
associate. His business life will be compelled only on its 
lower lines. His own ambitions, his own honor, his own 
power to plan in a social and nonselfish way, will yield the 
best of what he is worth to the world, and even to himself. 
The school arranges dictated courses of study, whether 
elective or not, and proceeds to carry them out in the hope 
of preparing the pupils for life. Its greatest failure is its 
failure to test its product. The product of the work of the 
school is evidently not a given amount of knowledge, or 
skill, or mere mental power. It is not even character, 
interpreted in the usual Puritan sense. It can be nothing 
less than a capacity for effective social service, including 
here as an essential the completest possible development 
of personality. When a nurseryman cultivates seedlings 
for the market, it is not sufficient that he plows and har- 
rows, and plants his seeds. He must do more than cast 
his bread upon the waters, hoping in some vague way that 
it will return to him after many days. On the contrary, 
he tests his product at every step. Before he sends his 
growing trees to distant orchards, he must see that they 
are already doing the very things that they should continue 

[24] 



TESTS FOR THE SCHOOL 

to do when transplanted. Upon this basis alone is he secure 
in the faith that when the time comes they may do more. 

If the capacityjor effective social service of a self- 
organized and voluntary character is the highest aim of 
the school, and one that includes and controls all the 
others, distinct opportunity for such work ought to be pro- 
vided in the school itself. When this is done such work 
will measure the rest of the work that is undertaken. It 
will be known to what extent the pupils have actually 
gained by their dictated courses of study if they apply the 
results of these to social needs, or if, in attempting to carry 
out their own social projects, they revert voluntarily to the 
classic themes of education. If pupils spontaneously organ- 
ize themselves for the purpose of studying certain aspects 
of nature, to that extent the dictated nature study is jus- 
tified. If they carry out, by their own efforts and the help 
which they solicit from others, an historical inquiry in 
which they become interested, or an arithmetical calcula- 
tion based on their own wonder or others' needs, or write 
and act a drama representing their own ideals of life, the 
way in which they do these things, and the ideas which 
govern them, will show whether they have been fructified 
by the dictated courses of study or left untouched by them. 
When one lights a fire it ought to keep on burning without 
a constant application of matches or too much work with 
the bellows. The result of education should be a self-feeding 
fire. The only way to test it is for the teacher not to hope, 
but actually to see whether or not it will burn alone. 

Certain parts of the school system, particularly the 
special and private schools, the trade schools, some manual 
training schools, and professional schools generally, are not 

[25] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

without rough means of testing their work. Professional 
and trade schools are tested by the immediate success of 
their graduates. The school of engineering, for instance, 
cannot afford to recommend incompetents. Its growth and 
maintenance depend on the reputation of those it sends 
out. These results are attained both by selection and by 
a watchful adaptation to the needs of the public. Many 
private schools are constantly tested by the parents who 
pay the bills. It is true that a test from this quarter is not 
always of a highly educational or social character. Either 
narrow self-interest or society in the special sense of the 
word frequently dominates. The deportment and manners 
of the children are often of the first consideration. Some 
requirements, tending often to be ornamental, such as 
music or French, follow next. Deep scholarship, high eth- 
ical aims, or wide social sympathy are frequently neg- 
lected. Within the circle of the demands actually made, 
the contact of fellow-pupils, and this of a superficial and 
conventional kind, usually counts for more than the per- 
sonality or ability of the teacher. Inadequate as these tests 
are as regards true usefulness, they serve the purpose of 
those who make them. 

It is the public school, devoted to general culture, from 
the primary grades up to the college and university, that 
suffers most from the failure to test its work. Public 
schools ought to be the best schools. In them should be 
realized the highest educational ideals of the nation. 
Special schools may be roughly and imperfectly tested by 
the success of individuals after they leave the school. 
This is more difficult with the American public school, 
which was not organized to fit the special interests of 

[26] 



TESTS FOR THE SCHOOL 

individuals but to serve the community as a whole. Most 
American communities insist upon compulsory schooling 
for all children until they are fourteen years old. Selection 
of pupils who enter, with a view to improving the output, is 
thus not possible below this age. Every one must be per- 
mitted to come. Indeed, the most backward and recalci- 
trant are, from some standpoints, deserving of the great- 
est degree of attention. The cultivation of the best that is 
in each child is the task of the people's school. 

That the schools are largely unmeasured and untested 
in an objective manner in harmony with their best aims, 
leads to attempts to measure them by some lower standard. 
We have already had some experience, in England more 
particularly, of " payment by results." This has been carried 
out by means of examinations. When the school is sup- 
ported financially in proportion to the number of pupils 
who take scholarships, or to the number who pass exami- 
nations set by outside authorities, the efforts of the school 
are focused on the acquiring of knowledge for a given ex- 
amination. Teachers study the examiners' idiosyncrasies, 
and cram their students to get the results required. 

But it is not only in England, or where financial pay- 
ment by results occurs, that similar practices obtain. In 
Massachusetts and in the state normal schools, supposed 
by the public to be dedicated to the study of the best in 
education, a clever teacher has discovered a way to outwit 
the examiners for the benefit of his pupils. He gives his 
class a set of answers to learn, whether they understand 
them fully or not. He then proceeds to teach them the 
subject to the best of his ability. When the examiner is 
more exigeanty or the teacher less bold and clever, a 

[27] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

vicious selection often occurs, in which not the most 
thoughtful and original, but the most malleable and reten- 
tive minds receive the maximum effort. Even at the best, 
a given quantity of knowledge is not a sufficient test of a 
student's education. 

In view of the manifest difficulty of testing a teacher's 
work, a demand is sometimes made to approximate the gen- 
eral culture schools to the type of special schools where 
the work done is more easily measured. Where we have 
manual training and industrial work in the schools, the 
growing skill of the pupils can be readily demonstrated. 
In so far as these occupations prepare for the special life 
work which the pupil is to undertake, their effectiveness is 
directly tested in the market. The children, moreover, like 
such work, largely because they see results themselves 
and are interested in the output. As incidental to work of 
this kind, a considerable amount of the standard require- 
ments of the school can very profitably be acquired. Cer- 
tain kinds of arithmetic and drawing are necessary in 
making and executing working drawings. Reading and 
writing can be brought in by means of descriptions, direc- 
tions, or recipes. Geography may be touched upon and 
made interesting in connection with the material which 
is handled or the object manufactured. 

We have here the good old law of correlation, useful 
enough in its place. The idea is that if a child is prima- 
rily interested in doing something, all kinds of related inter- 
ests can be loaded on. No doubt when a new requirement 
of knowledge or a new effort appears that seems to the 
child absolutely necessary to the accomplishment of what 
he wants to do, he may have native energy enough to 

[28] 



TESTS FOR THE SCHOOL 

overcome the resistance. But he may, on the contrary, feel 
like giving up his first desire. At least, he may simplify it 
considerably so that it takes in far less than the teacher, 
with his cargo of interests ready to load, had fondly hoped. 
When the secondary interests are not absolutely necessary 
as means, although they are ever so logically connected 
from the point of view of the teacher, is it not the most 
practical child, rather than the least, who betrays a disin- 
clination to depart from the immediate aim in view, or, 
after its satisfactory accomplishment, to tack on other 
efforts as a decoration ? Logic consists in sticking to the 
point. There is, after all, an irreducible surd in the doc- 
trine of correlation, if it be carried very far and measured 
by the natural interests of the child. It is unpractical to 
run the whole school on this plan. If the compulsion of 
the teacher is required to keep the process of expansion 
going, it is hard to see why he might not just as well have 
gone after his problem more directly. 

The doctrine of correlation and the logical expansion of 
interests suffers from the fact that the thinking that is 
done under these titles too frequently refers to interests 
looked upon as existing within an individual child. In 
order to develop these interests, the better furnished mind 
of the teacher is taken as the standard, and the child's 
interests are not to be " indulged," but "directed" towards 
this previously assimilated content (i). There is, however, 
nothing new here, and although legitimate as a factor, it is 
unnecessarily narrow. It is, moreover, exposed to the 
danger already mentioned, that when the teacher's direc- 
tion is removed the interests may revert to simple indul- 
gence, and development be curtailed. If, on the contrary, 

[29] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

interests are to get the trick of self-development, some- 
thing must be found in these interests themselves which 
leads to their expansion. 

But interests are, as a matter of fact, really expanded 
by numerous contacts with various minds, particularly with 
those on similar levels. Something, of course, should come 
from the teacher. But the total contact of the child's mind 
with his social environment, both within and without the 
school, is surely a more natural and broader source of 
" direction " than the confines of any single mind. The 
teacher should know how to organize the school socially, 
so that stimulating influences flow from one pupil to another, 
and from the school to the community as well as from the 
community to the school. A feeling of greater voluntary 
social service should arise in the pupil's mind when he 
expands his interests. This is indeed the greatest, if not 
the only effective motive capable of leading him to enlarge 
his efforts. 

When this expansion comes there is no reason why the 
child should not feel that he is "indulging" his interest. 
It is, of course, a changed and developed interest, but just 
for that reason it is felt to be more worthy of being real- 
ized. When interests are " directed " by the teacher, is it 
supposed that the pupil does not discover the fact .? Is it 
as easy as Rousseau thought to " dupe the child " > Close 
observation seems to show that the child realizes the fact 
of outside direction very quickly, although he may not 
formulate it very clearly. Moreover, if he is a good 
child, he feels that in some way he is rendering a social 
service to the teacher in acceding to the various " direc- 
tions " of what are supposed to be his interests. How 

[30] 



I TESTS FOR THE SCHOOL 

often in schools have we seen children acting particularly- 
well when they felt the teacher's professional reputation 
was at stake ! 

But if the child be at all clever, he soon sees that he is 
not performing any intrinsic social service for the teacher. 
He sees, for example, that the teacher already knows the 
answers to the questions which he asks the children. In 
fact, the teacher tells him that the recitations are for the 
pupils' good, and not for the teacher's. What feeling of 
social serviceableness can there be in this, and is it likely 
that such activities will be continued when the conven- 
tional atmosphere of the school is removed .? 

Without denying the great importance of manual train- 
ing and industrial work, it must be said that these, as well 
as other single subjects, are not adequate as a center for 
more than a limited number of the interests of the school. 
While the outside measurement of the work of the school 
is easy so far as these subjects themselves are concerned, 
they do not cover some of the most important social 
demands of the present day. Primitive people may have 
advanced in civilization by means of industrial inventions, 
but these were not the only factors of importance in their 
social development. Greater affection, fewer superstitions, 
purer religion and politics, are causes as well as effects of 
industrial progress. Only a limited portion of the total 
social serviceableness which we have a right to expect of a 
well-equipped individual can be extracted from, or closely 
and spontaneously correlated with, manual training and 
industrial occupations. 

In the kindergarten and primary grades the lack of 
adequate and natural measurement does not seem at first 

[31] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

sight so important. These schools are often partly free 
from the demands imposed upon them from without or by 
the higher grades. To waste time wisely is sometimes 
taken as their motto, though the measure of the wisdom 
may seem hard to find. These schools lie near the home, 
and it is not infrequently sought to make their methods 
and atmosphere approximate what is supposed to obtain 
there. This analogy seems rather superficial. The school 
can never successfully imitate the home. The contact of 
persons in the school is of a different kind. The school 
should do more in some directions than any home could 
ever do, while it certainly does less in others. Such an 
analogy, however, probably stands for little more than the 
feeling that the children in the primary school should be 
happy, whatever else. This is certainly sound, but there 
are many ways of being happy, some of which are more 
educative than others. The test applied to the primary 
schools by public or teachers ought in some way to reveal 
the social serviceableness for which the children are being 
educated. 

The failure of proper objective tests for the work of the 
kindergarten has recently led to some rather violent criti- 
cisms. It has been said that the kindergarten produces 
moral and intellectual flabbiness, and that, marvelous to 
say, these effects are so lasting as to be traced all the way 
to the university. How the origin of this flabbiness is 
established we are not informed, and no statistical inquiry 
is attempted. Mere opinions as they are, however, these 
criticisms are met by little more than other opinions of 
an opposite kind. Just what the kindergarten does suc- 
ceed in doing is left obscure. 

[32] 



TESTS FOR THE SCHOOL 

The ideals of the kindergarten, as held by the teachers 
of that department, are without doubt of a noble social char- 
acter ; but how about the ideals and social purposes of the 
kindergarten as held by the little tots themselves ? Are they 
too young to have any social purposes, however simple? 
The circle and the group are the two social institutions 
of the kindergarten, more fundamental to its constitution 
than the gifts, the games, or the songs. It is to be pre- 
sumed that the circle and the group are significant because 
they are fitted to a stage of childish growth where mass 
movements and tribal instincts dominate, and that they 
succeed in transforming these instincts into something 
more suitable for a higher stage of society. The circle 
particularly reminds one of the celebrations of primitive 
people, — dances where every foot must strike the ground 
at the same moment, songs in which every one must join, 
and even dramatizations applied to useful work, where the 
whole tribe performs the same action at the same time. 
Biicher (2) for example, describes a Madagascar tribe, while 
planting corn, as beginning at one end of the field and 
moving down its length to the beat of a drum, each mem- 
ber scratching a hole with one foot, dropping in the corn, 
and covering it with the other. The law of the circle, like 
that of the early tribe, would seem to be one of strict obedi- 
ence and social uniformity, although the cohesion involved 
is produced rather by the authority of the teacher than by 
the compulsion of the circle as a whole. That this appeals 
to the instincts of children there can be no doubt. 

The kindergarten group, it would appear, represents a 
step towards social differentiation, and the opportunity for 
social initiative and responsibility. The question arises, 

[33] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

however, To what extent has the practice of the modern 
American kindergarten actually recognized this ? In many 
instances, at least, it seems to have continued in the group 
the same authority and leadership of the teacher which is 
found in the circle. 

It may be that the difficulty arises from the fact that 
the kindergarten ideas, as they existed in Froebel's mind, 
originated from his experiences with children of greater 
age than those which the American kindergarten is forced 
to receive. Froebel, at least, seems to have had in mind 
the natural, self-formed groups of children from seven to 
eight. In "The Education of Man," he describes boys of 
this age building with blocks, sand, sawdust, fine green 
moss, etc. They construct a chapel with a cross and altar, 
a castle with a green hill, and a village. Down by the 
brook they build " canals and sluices, bridges and seaports, 
dams and mills." Vessels are made. The various groups 
come into contact with each other. Treaties arise. "All 
virtues proceed from this," says Froebel. 

How far the modern idea of the group has departed from 
this may be shown by the editorial remarks in the very 
edition of Froebel from which the above has been selected. 
Here a group is represented as constructing a small village 
out of the fifth and sixth gifts, all uniting " to express what 
they know about the history of wheat." This modern kin- 
dergarten leader then goes on to show the value of a table 
for such work : " so that with any given material at re- 
spectively equal distances from the circle or margin, the 
work will be strictly symmetrical and definitely related to 
the sides and angles, diagonals and diameters of the table 
top." "This symmetrical arrangement," he says, "serves 

[34] 



TESTS FOR THE SCHOOL 

as a powerful connecting link among the individual work- 
ers. They soon learn to contribute their material and 
energy to the execution of social purposes, with little or 
no thought of individual gain, and with still less of indi- 
vidual supremacy." 

But was there ever formed any real human group, since 
the days of the matriarchate, without some notion of indi- 
vidual supremacy ? The tribes soon developed a leader, and 
the state grew as leaders increased. This means sacri- 
fice, but such sacrifice is gain and produces supremacy. 
This is true so long as the gain is real and the supremacy 
real in the sense of accomplishing results. 

The real center of group formation lies in the under- 
standing of leadership. This is very different in children 
from what is found in adults. It is probably less perma- 
nent and responds to different needs. Whatever it is, how- 
ever, such leadership will take account of the actual per- 
sonnel and size of the group, and of the actual situation, 
material and social, in which the children imagine them- 
selves to be, as well as of their aims, purposes, and ideals. 
Boys do not keep together at the brookside nor form 
treaties without such leadership. 

But if the groups are not capable of being used socially 
by children so young, at least the institution of free play- 
time in the kindergarten might have been used as a test of 
leadership and a revelation of what the children are capable 
of doing through self -sustained social motives ; and to some 
extent and with some teachers it is so used. But even 
when free play is not looked upon with indifference or hos- 
tility, or excluded altogether, insufficient care is taken to 
find out what the children are capable of planning for this 

[35] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

period. "You may play any game you like, or you may 
have any gift you wish," rather limits the possibilities. 
The desire to do ought often to spring from home ex- 
periences or from the games and plays of the streets. 
As it is, there is little organization in the free playtime. 
It has the merits of a relaxation, rather than a wished-for 
opportunity for ambition and personal or social desire. 

It would be foolish to suppose that any high degree of 
social serviceableness can be expected of children so young. 
If, however, their plays and activities ought not to be 
largely social, but of a biological, hereditary, and racial 
character, it is strange that we find in the kindergarten a 
philosophy more saturated with social ideals than anything 
that is to be found higher up in the school. It is a con- 
dition that gives rise to a suspicion that the work of the 
kindergarten, in the minds of the children themselves, is 
not to be tested by, and does not flow from, the ideas 
which are said to govern it, — that the kindergarten philos- 
ophy is not an explanation of things that actually happen 
among the children, but that it is a product of the ideals 
and aspirations of the developed adult mind. No doubt the 
adult mind reveals a part of what lies latent in the child. 
We may, as adults, see the germ of higher social organiza- 
tion in children's plays, but the germ is not the tree, and we 
need some means of testing germs. The laws of the germ 
are its own laws, and to impose upon it standards derived 
from a later stage is to destroy the possibilities of its growth, 
while to be unable to apply any standard whatever is to 
work in the dark with prejudice or sentiment for a guide. 

While the standards employed are inadequate, there is, 
however, no reason why the school should not continue to 

[36] 



TESTS FOR THE SCHOOL 

profit by the various tests, insufficient as they are, by which 
the community has attempted to measure its work. Some 
of these too might be made more scientific, as Dr. J. M. Rice 
proposes. Knowledge is certainly to be desired, if it is not 
made the controlling aim. Happiness should come as a 
result of every good effort. To be equipped to earn one's 
daily bread is necessary as a foundation for every overtone 
of culture. In order to make our educational system more 
social, we need a greater number and variety of special 
trade schools, as well as a preliminary training in such sub- 
jects as will lead up to them. But the school devoted prin- 
cipally to generaljculture cannot afford to be measured 
entirely by these demands. The work of a school needs a 
test, not remote and future, not extraneous to its largest 
aims, but one that can be immediately and constantly used, 
that can be easily understood, that is as simple as possible, 
and that will be welcomed and enjoyed by both teachers 
and pupils. 

Not long ago, during the holidays, I asked a typical first- 
year high-school girl whom I knew very well, and who had 
done well in her classes, whether she thought or talked 
about anything that she had formerly done in school now 
that she was free to do as she wished, or whether she now 
used any of the interests which she might have been sup- 
posed to have acquired. She told me that she never thought 
of her Latin or algebra for a moment, but that she had 
liked " Marmion " when she read it in school. I asked her 
if she wished to read anything more of the same kind, and 
suggested " The Lady of the Lake." " Oh," she said, " I 
don't want to read anything of that sort ; I don't like poetry, 
anyway." She was, however, reading a novel of Dickens's. 

[37] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

She had formerly read another novel by the same author 
at her mother's suggestion, and liked it so much that she 
wished to read a second. She said, too, that if she were not 
going back to school in the autumn, she should like to go 
on with her French. I asked her why, and she replied that 
she should like to be able to speak French if she ever trav- 
eled abroad. As her sister was just about to spend a year 
in France, the practical aspect of this appealed to her. The 
same girl was popular with her school companions, had 
joined a little club with them, and was naturally active in 
a social way. 

These replies seem to indicate just a natural, healthy- 
minded girl. No one could wish that she continue her 
high-school grind during the holidays. Nor ought it to 
be said that her work in Latin and algebra was entirely 
useless. She had doubtless learned the very important 
lesson, that a daily task, when set by others, had to be 
attended to whether it was agreeable or not. Her language 
showed only ordinary culture, reflecting apparently her 
home environment rather than the accuracies or subtleties 
that might be supposed to come from translating Latin and 
French. Others, at least, taking the same course, varied 
widely from her in this respect, — a fact also probably 
connected with their home environments. Her reasoning 
power in ordinary affairs revealed no traceable impress of 
her work in algebra. A great part of what she had been 
doing showed no perceptible results in her development. 
Perhaps some teachers would say it was capitalized for 
a college course, and not yet able to pay dividends. 

The question is not at all whether such a course is value- 
less. The Greek triremes or the barques of Columbus were 

[38] 



TESTS FOR THE SCHOOL 

of indispensable value, but they do not measure up with 
an Atlantic liner. That a given course of study is better 
than some others, or better than none, is saying very little 
for it. Columbus might have said as much for his ships. 
The Atlantic liner in education has not yet been invented, 
but is this not largely because we do not realize sufficiently 
the nature of the task we intend to accomplish } We fail to 
test our efforts objectively, especially along the lines where 
we should well be justified in expecting the greatest progress. 
If increased social serviceableness and the highest develop- 
ment of personality aTe'Otir^aims, we need, as teachers and 
as citizens responsible for education, not only the best ob- 
tainable knowledge of the nature of these aims, but some 
objective test of the results of our efforts in these directions. 
The value of such a test, moreover, is to be estimated 
not only from the standpoint of better work in the school 
and better understanding of it by the pupils at large, but 
by the beneficial effect it would undoubtedly have upon the 
standing and organization of the teaching profession. This 
suffers at present both from the large number of poor 
teachers it contains and from their isolation and lack of 
cooperation. In many branches, indeed, it is a question 
whether we should not speak of the teaching trade rather 
than of the teaching profession. Both incomes and social 
consideration are reduced to the lowest terms. Many trades- 
women, to say nothing of tradesmen, are paid more and 
perhaps are equally honored in the community. In Boston, 
for example, a moderately competent dressmaker receives 
$3 or more per day (about ;^900 per year), and may rise 
to well-paid business positions or succeed in obtaining an 
estabHshment of her own. , 

[39] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 



I 



One of the chief marks of a profession is that it controls 
its own work. Teachers, however, frequently seem content 
to have their work laid out for them. This is nominally- 
done by school boards, but practically by a superior class 
of teachers, who often are proud to be called by some other 
name. The course of study crystallizes the directions of 
this superior class and makes it possible for them to see 
that the pupils have a certain amount of instruction, even 
if they are not really educated. 

Sometimes, it must be admitted, a clever teacher can 
"get round" the principal or supervisor sufficiently to be 
permitted to do the things that she judges best in her own 
class room. It is a permission, however, and not a right. 
On the other hand, the best principals and supervisors are 
without doubt looking for original, progressive teachers, and 
are glad to give them the necessary permission ; but, unfor- 
tunately, both teachers and principals of this kind are ex- 
ceptional. The average teacher meanwhile feels nothing 
unnatural in her role of unreflecting docility. Indeed, she 
seems to yearn for it. She " works " so many hours a day, 
and only wonders why some one who does no more "work " 
a day than she, often gets a higher wage. 

It does not follow, however, that a teacher who is not 
docile is independently or cooperatively responsible or origi- 
nal. It is quite possible that, like the poorly trained me- 
chanic, she can be relied on only up to a certain point. 
The principal or superior is then forced to direct nothing 
beyond what she is capable of executing, — a position some- 
thing like that of the old woman, who, having in vain com- 
manded her dog to come out from under the bed, was at 
last forced to say, " I will be obeyed at any rate ; so stay 

[40] 



- TESTS FOR THE SCHOOL 

there and don't dare to come out." After some experiences 
of this kind, the principal or supervisor is loath to overstep 
the bounds set for him by the docility of his teachers, is 
suspicious of originality, becomes fonder of platitudes and 
more disinclined to take risks, but succeeds in holding his 
job. If his soul could be freed from the slow and icy 
flow of docility that overwhelms it, the scratches and sheep- 
backed hummocks of a true glaciation would doubtless be 
revealed. . ->^ 

So long as teaching is trade-like, centralization, over-^ 
emphasized authority, and standardized courses of study, 
although varying with every town and city, will be found 
necessary, however inadequate they may be. As soon as 
teaching becomes a profession all the way down, these 
features will drop away, and a more social relationship, 
where the rights of the individual teacher are properly safe- 
guarded, will surely supervene. This is a condition that 
can never come until teachers look beyond their daily or 
even yearly "work " ; until they see more clearly the social 
ideals for which education is striving; until they grasp 
the essentials of the social environment in which they are 
living ; until they cooperate freely and steadily with one 
another ; and until they are competent to experiment with 
and actually create and control a large portion of their 
own professional activities. /^ 

Such experimenting and such creating, however, is im- 
possible without measurement, and it must be a measure- 
ment not of mere knowledge, but of social capacity and 
productive powers. It must, above all, be so objective as 
to leave no doubt in the mind of even the average citizen, 
that the same self-organizing ability that is manifested in 

[41] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

school will be amply sustained in later life. As already 
suggested, this test can be found only in the extent to 
which pupils, when freed from the oversight and benevolent 
coercion of the teacher, can use the knowledge and carry 
out the habits and ideals which it is the aim of the school 
to foster and protect. But this is a test which ought not 
to be left out of the school itself. It should be an intimate 
and organic portion of every school, and the results of it 
should react immediately upon everything else that is at- 
tempted. How can such a test be organized within the 
school .-* 

References 

1. John Dewey, School and Society. University of Chicago Press. 

2. Karl Biicher, Arbeit und Rhythmus. Leipsic, 1896. 



[42] 



CHAPTER III 
THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — MONARCHY 

The consideration of the question at the end of the last 
chapter will lead us to look more carefully into the internal 
organization of the school as distinguished from its service 
to society as a whole. In order to pursue this inquiry as 
inductively as possible, actual cases of schools which have 
specially manifested the social spirit must be studied in 
detail, and we must ask in these cases to what extent the 
pupils are self-organized and productive members of the 
embryonic society to which they belong. What social sat- 
isfaction do the pupils themselves get out of their life is 
a question which must be asked of every school. 

In illustration of a similar theme, Professor Jenks (i) cites 
an experience of his own, the public nature of which, he says, 
should have been made manifest to him at the time. " When 
a pupil in a district school," he goes on, " I trudged off with 
a comrade a quarter of a mile to bring a pail of drinking 
water, I believe that an added value would have been given 
to the outdoor freedom if I had been made to realize that 
I was doing a citizen's duty, working for the public ! " 

It is not, of course, by any mere dogmatic explanation 
that a teacher could best succeed, or even succeed at all, 
in teaching the full social value of such a service. To be 
socially effective, the action should proceed from the com- 
bined desires of the participants. Under these circumstances 

[43] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

various considerations might have entered into the selection 
of the water carrier, — his personal popularity, his general 
merit, or his special fitness for the task in hand ; but in any 
event the honor of being chosen by his mates would have 
added meaning and value to what was permitted to seem 
merely a release from the irksome confinement of the 
schoolroom. 

As far as the social motive of honor is concerned, it may 
well be asked if the boy could have felt this any more if 
chosen by the pupils rather than by the teacher. The psy- 
chology of the honor feeling and honor motives lies at the 
root of much that is best in society, and their deterioration, 
as Franz Krauss shows in his study of folk death, means 
the decadence of the race. To wish to be honored by those 
distinctly above one, means that one respects them and has 
a tendency to imitate them. It is probably easier to love 
those above than those below, or to do them a service. How 
eager we often are to lay our purses at the feet of a real 
leader, while needed help or charity is carefully meted out 
to those on our own level or below it. This is often true 
where there is no conscious expectation of a return. Our 
purpose is an idealized one, and arises in obedience to an 
instinctive feeling. Even when love does not enter in, 
admiration is sufficient to cause respect and imitation. 
Lower races in this way imitate their conquerors, and the 
lower classes aspire to the experiences which they observe 
in those above them, which they never would have thought 
of for themselves. In the stimulation of the honor feeling 
by a superior there is without doubt an important element 
of social education. But when the teacher dispenses the 
honors it is almost inevitable that he consults only his own 

[44] 



^ THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — MONARCHY 

judgment and is satisfied with his own point of view. 
His choice often seems to the school purely arbitrary, 
and a matter of personal favor, even when he. is sin- 
cerely honest in his purpose. In consequence, jealousy 
and envy and the sense of injustice are aroused and work 
the greatest havoc. When the teacher reserves the privi- 
lege of honoring worthy pupils, he should certainly try to 
ascertain the school's point of view and make his action, 
so far as possible, coincide with it. If he defies it, he has 
hindered his own ends. 

When the school is a boarding school and takes charge 
of the whole life of the child, a larger number of responsi- 
ble privileges may be dispensed. This is certainly not often 
realized in boarding schools, and in many such schools the 
question. What boys are feeling themselves honored in the 
activities they are performing .? would meet with a rather 
negative answer. 

Of a very different type is the school at Abbotsholme, 
England, under the principalship of Dr. Cecil Reddie. Here 
the boys are trained to a high sense of honor by a method 
which goes far beyond the mere distribution of little privi- 
leges. The school indeed has become a state, but it is a 
state of a certain type. This is plainly indicated in Dr. 
Reddie's designation of it as a school for the directing 
classes, and in the fact that the whole life and management 
of the school is derived from its monarch. This, however, 
does not prevent a thoroughly willing system of honorable 
and honor-loving cooperation, and the great success of the 
institution in realizing the happiness and characters of the 
pupils raises the question whether a good monarchy is not 
better than an indifferent democracy. 

[45] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

The social features of this remarkable school, which 
already has a number of offshoots or colonies in other 
parts of England, France, and Germany, are founded on an 
insight into the real capacities and emotional undercurrents 
of the pupils. As Dr. Reddie claims, the school aims to di- 
minish competition and increase cooperation. This principle 
is applied in the first place to the natural affections of the 
boys for each other. The management of the ordinary board- 
ing school often tends to sharpen rivalries. In class work 
one boy is set against another. Close friendships among 
the boys are carefully watched and broken up in the fear 
of unmentionable evils. Such watchfulness against vice 
becomes so marked at times that it actually suggests its 
commission. 

Dr. Reddie, on the contrary, believes rather in encourag- 
ing affection for the purpose of promoting its best and 
purest development. He thinks that such a spirit is the 
surest protection against impurity, and that the antagonism 
of competition is more liable to lead to vice. The boys room 
together in small dormitories, where they are not overlooked 
by teachers, but are left in a spirit of honorable confidence. 
The personnel of each dormitory and the influence of one 
pupil on another are carefully considered, one of the older 
boys or prefects having a large share of responsibility. The 
boys themselves discuss with Dr. Reddie the make-up of 
their dormitory groups and what habits of manner, conver- 
sation, and toilet make for character, health, and a true 
manly spirit. In such conferences Dr. Reddie is careful 
not to go beyond the point of view of the boys themselves, 
or, at most, such a point of view, obtained from him, as they 
can successfully carry out. They thus feel that it is an 

[46] 



I THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — MONARCHY 

honor to be trusted, and they help one another to be loyal 
to the confidence reposed in them. There are rules posted 
which are not too formal or simple, some of them, indeed, 
being esoteric, if not occult. It is evidently considered un- 
necessary to post a rule which every honorable boy would 
naturally think of and obey. The rules are issued by the 
head master, but they are explained to the boys, and are 
accepted by them as right. 

Some quotations from these rules, which are beautifully 
printed by the boys themselves on the school press, will 
serve to show the cooperative nature of this school. 

WHAT ARE THE EDUCATIVE MERITS OF BATHING,? 

A. The educative advantages of bathings etc., are as folloivs : 

Of all possible physical exercises, perhaps the most wholesome 
and most valuable, as well as most delightful, are those connected 
with bathing. No other physical exercise is so completely a revel- 
ing in contact with nature. 

Bathing may, indeed, be considered a kind of worship of nature. 
This worship touches at once all sides of our life, — physical, mental, 
aesthetic, and ethical; and if we think of the symbolic meaning of 
all natural things, we must add also that it feeds our spiritual life. 

Contact with water, together with the feeling of affectionate 
mastery over it ; exposure of the naked body to the pure air of heaven, 
to the sun's heat, and, both in the water and on the banks, to the 
surf's light ; bringing the feet, while running about on the greensward, 
into living contact with Mother Earth ; all these are sources of health 
and inspiration. Let us not forget Antaeus, son of Poseidon (Water) 
and Ge (Earth) (i.e. Force, the child of Motion and Matter). 

. . . One professor invents or rediscovers the earth cure, and 
will have us walk with bare feet and bathe in earth or mud ; another 
discovers, what seems so obvious, the power of air to heal or ward 
off diseases of the air passages and lungs ; another cures, by means 
of the sun's heat and light, maladies of the skin till now considered 
incurable. But we need not go to Germany to find our Mother Nature \ 

[47] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

she is as potent in our own England as ever she was or is elsewhere. 
Let us lay aside unwholesome clothing, false shame, and impure 
"morality," and no longer be afraid of worshiping nature in naked 
simplicity. 

Bathing affords the supreme occasion for this worship, and con- 
stitutes, therefore, one of the chief elements in a wholesome school 
life. We shall not lose, but increase the benefit by properly under- 
standing it. 

HOW IS BATHING, SWIMMING, etc., ORGANIZED? 
B. The general organization is as follows : 

I. The bathing, etc., is under the management of the Swimming 
Committee, at the head of which are the Captain and Vice Captains 
of S'wim7m?ig. 

2. The Swimming Committee will have the advice of one of the 
assistant masters, selected for the purpose by the head master, who 
will be called the Swimming Master. He will advise on all matters 
connected with bathing, and will decide, after consultation with the 
Swimming Captain, whether, on any particular day, when the condi- 
tions of weather, etc., are unfavorable, there shall be any bathing, 
and if so, whether it shall be compulsory or optional ; at beginning of 
term, however, and in any change of weather, he will take the opinion 
of the head master. He will also act as judge in all examinations for 
promotion. As far as possible, however, the organization and admin- 
istration will be left in the hands of the committee. The aim in view 
is to leave to the boys as much freedom for self-government as is 
compatible with efficiency and progress in the aquatic arts, coupled 
with safety to life. 

Here follows a division of the boys into seven classes 
separated by six swimming tests, with the prohibitions for 
those in the lower classes. 

The rules for haymaking begin with the general statement : 

Haymaking, with all its concomitant sights, sounds, smells, activi- 
ties, emotions, and ideas, is not only one of the most delightful events 
of the school year, but is regarded at Abbotsholme as having an 
educational influence of the highest value. 

[48] 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — MONARCHY 

WHAT ARE THE EDUCATIVE INFLUENCES 
OF HAYMAKING? 

Haymaking, with all the attendant circumstances, exercises an 
influence not unlike that of bathing, elsewhere described, for it is a 
kind of bathing in air, warmth, and sunshine. ... 

Haymaking, unlike ordinary games which are practiced constantly, 
comes only once a year. If, as here, it is conducted entirely by the 
boys, under the head master's direct supervision, it affords time and 
opportunity of seeing at a glance how far the boys, and particularly 
the seniors, show a talent for unpremeditated organization. . . . 
Also it affords an opportunity for studying the application of the 
principle of cooperation to a most delightful though useful occupation, 
and for showing that leadership is as indispensable in peace as in 
war, in the serious and necessary work of life as much as in sports. . . . 
All these influences of the harvest reach the climax when, at length, 
the last load is dragged up the hill to the hay barn ; for then the 
whole school, aided by full orchestra, marches in procession, singing. 
As the joyous crowd draws near the bam, suddenly in the cool even- 
ing appears, as if by magic, the red harvest moon, rising with soft 
splendor behind the dark wood on the hilltop beyond ; and in the 
gentle twilight every one feels descending upon him a mysterious 
influence, as if it were the spiritual benediction of the queen of the 
night, smiling upon the good work now completed. 

Evidently the moon obeys the rules as well as the boys. 
Happy boys ! 

As is indicated in these short extracts from two of the 
dozen or so sets of rules, there is a great deal of cooperation 
ih. all the outdoor life^of the pupils. The same is true of 
their domestic life. A certain degree of leadership is per- 
mitted and encouraged, as in the case of captains or pre- 
fects. The boys are even urged to take the initiative when 
the head master is not available, or when it is well under- 
stood that the head master would approve. The prefects 
especially, being tried boys who have been in the school for 

[49] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

some time, are delegated in this way. The care of the pre- 
fects is hkened to that of fathers for their children, and this 
feature of the school is designed as a training for such a 
function. The governing attitude of the prefects, as of the 
rest of the pupils, is not, however, that of invention or ex- 
periment ; they do not create society or social movements ; 
they are simply loyal to the state which is established and 
controlled by an admired and well-loved monarch, and feel 
honored in carrying out his suggestions and commands. 
They are captains and lieutenants of an authority which 
neither they nor the pupils under them consciously organ- 
ize. While they feel their membership in a social whole, 
which they recognize to be for their own good, they are not 
directly responsible to the body of citizens, but to the ruler 
of the state. 

The attitude of the head master is evidently one of great 
care and tenderness for those placed in his charge. Even 
the rules are plainly designed in a spirit of deepest and sin- 
cerest service on his part. He has not put forth automatic 
commands merely issued to save trouble, but has tried 
to interest his pupils, and the present writer believes, has 
succeeded, in penetrating imaginatively the minds and 
hearts of happy and willing subjects, and in leading them 
to become followers of the word, and not hearers only. 

The reality and depth of the loyalty of the pupils, which 
is not of a superficial, emotional type, is shown by a number 
of things, but on a recent visit to Abbotsholme one fact 
struck me as being of rather special significance. Although 
many of the boys are over eighteen, none of them smoke, 
even surreptitiously. On this latter point I satisfied myself 
by cross-examining one of the old pupils who was making 

[50] 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — MONARCHY 

a visit to Abbotsholme. And yet Dr. Reddie himself smokes 
quite openly, on the lawns and in his library. There is no 
watchfulness to prevent the boys from smoking. Its effect 
is explained to them on the proper scientific ground of the 
maintenance of health in a growing organism, although, as 
every one knows, such knowledge alone is often ineffective 
with boys whose gang or group approves the practice. The 
boys of this school do not regard smoking as wrong, but as 
wrong for them until they have matured. There are, after 
all, many things besides smoking, like marriage, the wear- 
ing of long trousers, occasional late hours, or the spending 
of large sums of money, which are suitable for one age or 
station and not for another. To be made to recognize this, 
and yet to be able to do the best that one's own position 
requires, indicates a higher self-control and a stronger char- 
acter than to be brought up to think that every detail in a 
leader may be indiscriminately copied. In the former case 
there is indeed a true understanding of the reality which 
it is essential to imitate, and a wholesome assumption that 
boys are really more like men than monkeys. 

It is during the part of the school life which lies outside 
the class room that the working of the honor spirit is most 
apparent. Not that the discipline of the classes is some- 
thing different. The pupils may safely be left alone. They 
know it to be their duty to pay respectful attention to their 
teachers and to carry out their wishes. The teaching, too, 
is made as practical as possible. Modern languages are 
begun before the classics, and pupils are made to identify 
themselves as much as possible with Frenchmen or Ger- 
mans. Boys perform actions, like taking off their shoes, walk- 
ing, making a bow, and so on, and other boys describe these 

[51] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

actions in the foreign language. The maps used are made, 
when possible, in the countries which they describe. Visits 
to the Continent are made by the pupils under the care of 
teachers. When the classics are studied the boys become 
Romans and Greeks, and often carry out this spirit in their 
games. Science is studied in close contact with nature. 
Bees are kept, trees are cut and measured, houses are built, 
harvests are garnered. The last load of hay is usually ac- 
companied by a festal procession, led by violins and choris- 
ters. The regular time schedule of the school, from 6.30 a.m. 
to 10 P.M., is scientifically arranged, and with the beautiful 
chapel exercises twice during the day, its steady unfolding 
gives a feeling of thorough artistic enjoyment to the visitor. 
All of this beauty, healthfulness, order, and regularity flow 
directly from the fertile brain and loving heart of the mon- 
arch of the state. 

If King George had been half as good and clever, Ameri- 
cans never would have revolted. Even limited monarchies 
are the result of the mistakes or defects of the monarchs. 
Such a school as Abbotsholme fulfills its mission and affords 
an admirable training for the directing classes of a monarchy 
even as tolerant as that of England. The government of 
India alone would doubtless profitably absorb as many of 
such pupils as could be produced. 

There is, as already said, a very important social bond 
and a powerful appeal to the social instinct in being trusted 
and honored by a superior. In its earliest form we find it 
at work wherever the clan has developed to the stage 
requiring a chieftain. The monarch, indeed, is a chieftain 
carried to the 72th power. The Jacobin Loyalists of Eng- 
land show how important, even in recent times, is the claim 

[52] 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — MONARCHY 

of such a functionary. Yet a monarchy never could have 
existed on a large scale, if it had not effectively extended 
itself to the protection of interests which grew up independ- 
ently of the monarch himself. There must be possible under 
such a'government a large amount of organized variety, 
much more than the monarch is capable of thinking of. 
When not absolute, such a monarchy is really a disguised 
democracy. The old forms have been retained, but a new 
life has partly filled the mold. The loyalty of the citizens 
of England to their king is only apparent when challenged. 
Most of them are not thinking of conducting their lives 
after his model or as he would wish to have them. The 
directing classes alone may be appreciably influenced by 
such motives. To find a prototype for a school monarchy 
like Abbotsholme, we should need to go much further 
back than the present condition of England. King Arthur 
and his court, or the early kings of Greece and Rome, may 
possibly have furnished such an example, although the 
modern instance, through its modern ruler, is full of the 
impress of modern times. 

It is evident that the pupils of such a school are getting 
a great deal out of it, and this of an immediate social char- 
acter. The school is a real organism. The habits of life, 
moreover, are of a kind calculated to reproduce themselves. 
Tastes and interests, the habit of loyalty and the love of 
honor acquired and developed here, are likely to be con- 
tinued after the pupil goes away. The school is tested in 
this respect by the parents, and its maintenance and growth 
depend directly on their approval. In the school itself the 
head master is also constantly observing and testing the 
pupils as to their health, their tone and bearing, their 

[53] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

courage and fidelity in carrying out the spirit of the 
institution. 

Having admitted so much in favor of an almost ideal 
school monarchy, it may be feared that there can be little 
left to say in behalf of democracy, and yet in America we 
are committed to democratic government, and unless the 
spirit of democracy appears in the school, it must in some 
essential way be failing in its trust. 

In the first place, however, we ought to make the claim 
for the ideal American school that all the best virtues of 
a monarchy should be retained in a democracy, which, 
unless it is a higher development of a monarchy, has no 
reason for its existence. The pupils ought to have the 
experiences of loyalty to those above them. They should 
wish to be honored and trusted by them, and they should 
feel the social satisfaction and sense of responsibility which 
comes from such confidence. Democracy does not mean 
that there should be no superior in authority or in station. 
Even forcible compulsion and implicit obedience are fre- 
quently necessary in a good democracy. 

What democracy means is a fair chance for the develop- 
ment of all the opportunities there are. It means that the 
blessings of life shall not flow constantly from one source, 
and that not one and his lieutenants, or even a few, shall 
rule continuously, but that every citizen shall have an 
opportunity of dispensing honor for social service well per- 
formed, and of removing those who fail in this respect. It 
means that the virtues and opportunities of the best monarch 
may become the virtues and opportunities of every citizen 
who is capable of them. Going further than the easier love 
and admiration that looks upward for guidance, it must also 

[54] 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — MONARCHY 

develop to the highest degree the care and appreciation 
which looks downward or to those on a similar level. 

Not only the power of directing one's self under the eye 
of a superior, but the power to create plans and direct 
others should be widespread in a democratic state. As gen- 
eral statements these truths are trite and uninteresting. It 
is in the concrete facts which they represent that true prob- 
lems arise. Applied to the school, it may well be asked if 
the exhibition of the character of a noble monarch is not 
a great stimulus, not merely to loyalty but to initiative. 
This is undoubtedly true. A case in point may be cited 
from Abbotsholme itself. A boy, when asked what he 
would like to be, replied that he should like to be a 
teacher. This is pointed out by Dr. Reddie as one of the 
best recommendations of the school, and it certainly is. 
But what opportunity is there under a monarchy, not per- 
haps for the practice of all the socially creative powers 
necessary for such a teacher as the head master of Abbots- 
holme, but for any considerable part of them ? Mere lieu- 
tenancy, however trusted, cannot afford such a role. The 
boy will be forced to remain, so far as the highest appreciable 
features of his model are concerned, in a passive attitude, 
and await some future time before he can attempt the 
active realization of his ideal. When he finally comes to 
it, he may discover, or others for him, that his socially 
active and inventive powers are weak and undeveloped, 
and that he is forced to become a mere imitator of lower 
qualities than those which were controllingly operative 
in the original. There is thus some loss in the trans- 
mission of life, to say nothing of the liberation of new 
and undreamed-of powers. 

[55] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

No one will be so shortsighted as to think that a boy 
can suddenly be placed in the position of a teacher or the 
head master of a school, or that he could even act suitably 
as a substitute or monitor. The boy himself, if he possesses 
common sense and does not simply wish to jilay, would be 
among the first to see the futility of such a step. What 
the boy really means when he says he should like to be a 
teacher is only to be discovered by applying the test of 
action. His answer might have been flattery, or, what is 
more likely, it might have been an expression of that loose 
dreaming, which, as Mommsen in his study of Caesar shows, 
makes the mere idealogue rather than the practical idealist. 
Not that one need to be in a hurry to kill out all immedi- 
ately unrealizable dreams, but that it is necessary to give 
practice at all times in life in the working out of dreams 
that can, within a reasonable time and with some degree 
of probability, be made to come true. But the progressive 
realization of a dream or ideal is the natural means of its 
control and the natural source of its sane development. 

The boy's notion of becoming a teacher, if offered as a 
real plan, could be met with inquiry so as to get at the 
widest range of his point of view. The full vision of his 
model is, of course, not possible for him. What are the 
aspects, however, which have appealed to him ? From this 
as a basis, it would be necessary to add some features of 
self-revelation on the master's part, which could be under- 
stood. We might imagine him saying : " What have I, as a 
teacher, to do ? I must say,*must I not, what the boys are 
to do, and think of such things as are good for them, so 
that they will do them willingly and cheerfully. Can you 
get any boys to do what you suggest and keep them at it 

[56] 



* 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — MONARCHY 

until the purpose is accomplished ? What would these 
things be ? Would they be worth while ? How could you 
attract these boys ? What would be the difficulties in the 
way ? " The duties of scholarship and the necessity for 
keeping up his school work are so obvious that it would 
hardly be necessary to emphasize them. These duties 
were very likely not the source of this boy's desire to 
teach. It was probably something more vital than mere 
learning that attracted him. 

Propositions like these, however, go considerably beyond 
the monarchical state even when this conceals, as at Abbots- 
holme, much that is democratic in tendency. They may be 
judged unpractical and visionary, but it is at least clear that 
they are of the very essence of democracy. The carry- 
ing out of great varieties of such schemes, properly organ- 
ized and dovetailed into each other, would seem likely to 
give us a school not for the directing classes or the directed 
masses, but one capable of training the masses to direct 
themselves. This is not accomplished when, as in an ideal 
monarchy, each boy controls himself, either from mere self- 
respect or for the love and honor which he feels flowing to 
him from a superior. For a democracy it is also necessary 
that a pupil should get an opportunity to direct others, to 
change and mold their opinions, and at the same time to 
submit himself as a leader to their uncoerced approval. 
This means a social situation which would call for and 
develop a higher and broader kind of control than that 
which is mainly confined to self, and it would use resources 
and expansions of the social instinct which are character- 
istic of the present condition of civilization. 
Reference. 1. Jeremiah Jenks, Citizenship and the Schools, p. 32. 

[57] 



CHAPTER IV 

THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — THE REPUBLIC 

In order to show what difficulties underUe the realization 
of such a conception as that suggested in the last chapter, 
and to trace the active working of the democratic spirit as it 
appears in the internal organization of some of our schools, 
let us turn our attention to some contemporary examples. 

The George Junior Republic of Freeville, N.Y., is an 
instance of a school which is consciously organized on a 
social basis. That it performs a great social service to 
the community cannot be doubted. It has awakened inter- 
est in hundreds of people who have come from all over the 
country to study it, it is supported by private beneficence, 
and it has turned out, since its foundation in 1895, a large 
number of boys and girls who have been reclaimed from 
vice and set on the way to become self-supporting citizens. 

Published accounts of the Republic have not been crit- 
ical, and have always been short. When passing beyond a 
description of the mere appearance of facts, they have been 
exceedingly laudatory. The complaints that have been 
raised have had but a newspaper basis and an ephemeral 
newspaper circulation, and have been satisfactorily disproved 
by the investigation of the Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Children (1). 

In view of its importance there is greatly needed at 
present a larger and more complete study of the institution. 

[58] 



i 

THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — THE REPUBLIC 

P With such material as is at hand, however, and with per- 
sonal reports obtained from visitors and some conversation 
with Mr. George himself, the founder of the Republic, the 
present writer hopes to be able to convey an understand- 
ing of the essential features of the school. 

"The territory of the Republic," says Dr. William I. 
Hull (2), "is even smaller than that of Marino, being only 
forty-eight acres in extent, and its buildings are few and 
simple. In the winter its inhabitants are only forty-four in 
number, twenty-seven boys and seventeen girls ; and in the 
summer, when the tide of immigration rolls in, the popula- 
tion increases to two hundred and fifty, and tents are 
erected to supplement the few simple buildings," The boys 
and girls in attendance, all from twelve years of age up, 
are for the most part drawn from circumstances far from 
favorable. Of thirty-one members in the roster for one of 
the earlier years, all were described as less than promis- 
ing. Characterizations run as follows : arrested for crime ; 
a young tough ; an all-round disagreeable character ; way- 
ward young girl from bad home ; thief and runaway ; 
degenerate (now in insane asylum) ; typical street Arab ; 
wild, arrested for truancy ; a rowdy girl ; wild street boy, 
leader of a gang. With the exception of the one in the 
asylum, all of these thirty-one have for the most part 
decidedly improved. Some of them are in college, others 
in business or in responsible positions (Report of Bureau of 
Labor and Charities, Syracuse, N.Y.). There is thus an 
unfortunate selection of the pupils, whether voluntary or 
not, which must be constantly borne in mind by the inves- 
tigator. The pupils, moreover, are not free to leave, nor 
in many cases are the parents free to take them away. 

[ 59 ] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 



^ 



The social features of the school which strike the visitor 
most forcibly are its industrial and economic basis and the 
degree to which the pupils exert the strong arm of coercion 
in carrying out the laws. These laws are sometimes said 
to be made by the children themselves, and a part of them 
undoubtedly are ; but the original constitution was given 
to them by Mr. George, and other measures have also been 
introduced by him. The constitution imitates as closely as 
possible the Constitution of the United States. There is a 
Congress, consisting of a Senate and House of Represen- 
tatives, which "has the power of passing laws in harmony 
with the United States Constitution and the laws of New 
York State" (3). Mr. George at first was the president of 
the Republic and had a veto power over its laws, " but now 
there is a boy president, whose veto can be set aside only 
by a two-thirds' vote of the Congress." There are courts, 
judges, guards, a jail, and a police force, but without the 
industrial and economic basis these would be of much 
smaller importance than they are. The fundamental con- 
dition of the organization is that the pupils work for their 
living. The motto of the Republic is. Nothing without 
labor. In proportion to the work they do, wages are paid 
them in imitation money, which is valid only within the 
Republic. The labor day is from eight thirty to twelve, 
and the wage from fifty to seventy-five cents per day. No 
one need go unprovided with work. It is the part of the 
superintendent, Mr. George, to give or make work for every 
applicant, whether on the land or in the care of cattle, 
ditching, leveling, chopping, sweeping, bed making, cook- 
ing, waiting on table, etc. (4). Work is outlined and con- 
trolled by the school state. It is, however, sublet to 

[60] 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — THE REPUBLIC 

individuals, who can hire other workmen. No one, of course, 
can become a contractor without sufficient capital. A pre- 
mium is thus placed on thrift. 

A citizen who can afford it may live in very comfortable 
style. " The hotels, as they are called, are of three grades, 
from the Hotel Waldorf, on the second floor of the main 
building, where the millionaires sleep, and pay twenty-five 
cents a night for the privilege of having a tastily furnished 
room to themselves, to the lowest class of lodgings in the 
attic, where the unsuccessful business men or the idlers 
must take up their quarters at ten cents a night. If the 
citizen has no money to pay for lodgings, he must pass the 
night in the station house, and in the morning is arrested 
for vagrancy and made to work out the fine imposed." 
" The restaurants also are let to contractors, and their 
prices vary from fifteen cents to twenty-five cents a meal." 
" In addition to the contracts let by the government, other 
industries have sprung up. The boys become carpenters ; 
retail venders of fruit, candies, and other commodities 
dear to children's hearts ; public officials ; lawyers ; and 
skilled laborers of various kinds. The girls turn to sewing, 
clothes patching, stocking darning, and housework." Fines 
imposed by the court thus cut into the necessary means of 
a good livelihood. Hunger or personal comfort, if no higher 
motives, tend to enforce the laws. 

In the winter time, especially when work is scarce, some 
of the older boys are selected to act as "schoolmasters." 
They prepare questions on all sorts of subjects, ferreted out 
from histories, geographies, encyclopedias, etc. These ques- 
tions are distributed and the successful answers paid for. 
The usual expenses of the citizen are met with the money 

[6i] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

thus obtained, — certainly a very extraordinary departure 
from the seemingly industrial foundation of the school. 

Apart from the labor and book learning, there are hours 
for play and recreation. Christian influences are constantly 
brought to bear, and everything possible is done by Mr. 
and Mrs. George to establish the friendly relations of a 
home. Being divested of the role of a constantly active 
disciplinarian, the superintendent is more free to proffer 
advice and counsel, which may or may not be taken, as the 
citizen decides. 

It is to be noted that back of all the pupil machinery 
of government stands Mr. George. As the report of the 
Labor and Charities Commission says, " It is to be under- 
stood that it is the policy of the management to advise 
sparingly and to command only when necessity requires." 
Formerly the industry on the farm was carried on by in- 
dustrial classes, "the citizens being enrolled in these, and 
paid according to the number of hours spent in the acquisi- 
tion of technical knowledge. . . . The class system was 
done away with and the contract system substituted in 
accordance with Mr. George's aim to introduce into th( 
Republic as many of the conditions of ordinary life as 
possible. . . . An inspector for hotels is employed by the 
government and makes his rounds daily, accompanied by 
Mrs. George, who fines the inspector if he fails to discover 
any faults of omission or commission." As Mr. Hull goes 
on to say : " If we are consistent believers in the American 
political theory, we must admit that the machinery adopted 
by the founder of the George Junior Republic for carrying 
on its work is the best which the mind of man has devel- 
oped. But mere machinery is useless without a motive force, 

[62] 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — THE REPUBLIC 

and this motive force is largely supplied by the clever brain 
and kindly heart of Mr. George " (6). 

We must, however, avoid being deceived by mere 
machinery. It is the spirit and not the letter which 
maketh alive. In the adult state there may be machinery 
which is useless or even pernicious, but, apart from vicious 
intention, that is usually because it has been useful at 
some previous time. Real law and real government in 
real communities spring up to protect real interests which 
could not advance without their guardianship. Effective 
voting is not simply a registration of opinion ; it is a 
registration of an opinion about a vital issue. And just 
because of this, it is more than the registration of an 
opinion ; it is the expression of the amount of force in 
fighting units which would be available, if necessary, to 
back up this opinion. Voting came in during the course 
of history as a substitute for a show of arms. The inven- 
tion of gunpowder, which put the means of defense into 
the hands of masses of men, was a necessary prerequisite 
for a wide diffusion of the suffrage. The mere right to 
\rote does not characterize a citizen or a state, although 
che lack of it sometimes does. In clan life a new band 
was often formed when some one arose, proposed a proj- 
ect, — a marauding expedition, perhaps, — and asked for 
followers. Those who elected to go with him, by that 
act also elected him as chief, an office he held only as 
long as his success was approved by a sufficiently strong 
majority. When the Afghans in the eighteenth century 
captured Ispahan and destroyed most of the citizens, this 
barbarian host, in their rude, in deliberative way, exercised 
a suffrage among themselves. 

[63] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

Government means force and the power to coerce the 
minority. If it did not mean this, but consisted of a mere 
registration of opinion, the aims of the philosophical an- 
archists would be reached, and all of our apparatus of 
courts, jails, mayors, congressmen, commissioner of police, 
etc., would be sloughed off as an expensive luxury. When 
voting does not represent fighting force and its intelligent 
organization, it becomes a farce and is easily overridden. 
This is evidently the condition of affairs in the negro belt 
of the southern states. When society can get a more 
direct registration of its fighting ability by counting the 
votes of women, or can estimate with more delicacy and 
accuracy the number of fighting units by employing women 
in responsible governmental positions, it will be forced, in 
order to survive, to extend to them the suffrage and to call 
upon them to share in executive government. This is, of 
course, not unreasonable and not an impossibility, but 
mainly because of the influence of women over men, — 
which, however, they already exert, — and not because it 
is likely that women will ever make good soldiers. Voting 
is not for individuals, but for society. 

The real characteristics of a citizen in a civilized com- 
munity are indicated much more truly by the votes that 
he influences than by the single one that he casts, but 
even this function is not the real measure of his value to 
society. The forcible protection which government exer- 
cises is always a means to an end. This end consists in 
the interests, the plans, the schemes, the desires and ambi- 
tions, the many-sided life of civilization which springs up 
in the hearts of all mankind. Where these are of such 
a nature as to run counter to the social good, coercion is 

[64] 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — THE REPUBLIC 

necessary to restrain or destroy them. When, on the con- 
trary, they exist but in a weak and feeble condition, and 
if they are recognized as of value to society, it is equally 
necessary to supply them with the means of growth. Force, 
however, can never make plans grow where there are no 
plans in mind. People cannot be made good by compul- 
sion. Just sufficient force to fulfill these two functions of 
protection and of sustenance (not necessarily of the weak, 
but of the socially desirable) is all that is required. An 
excess is wasteful. 

In early societies everybody was a policeman, and blood 
revenge was the duty of each, not simply for his own sake, 
but in obedience to the social instincts of all. To-day we 
economize these executive powers by delegating them to 
as few as possible, and thus secure for the rest freedom to 
engage in other concerns. If there are interests and plans 
of a social value, which even the weakest member of society 
entertains, this delegated force should be at his disposal, 
to protect him from imposition and to help him in his 
ambition. If women, for example, are unable to carry out 
socially valuable schemes of life because coercive force 
stands in their way, fails to protect them, or refuses to 
help them, the government as it exists is seriously faulty 
and unjust. Whenever the strong arm of compulsion is re- 
quired, men will be necessary to carry it out. Executive 
government is, after all, nothing but a policeman on a 
larger scale. 

The same conditions apply, with even more cogency, to 
children. The exercise of physical compulsion or constraint 
can never spring from them so long as they are part of a 
civilized community; nor can it ever be rightly exercised 

[65] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

by them except in so far as they act as delegates or mes- 
sengers of a power which they do not help to create. Force, 
however, by virtue of the social life within us, is bound to 
be exerted on their behalf. Their best interests and desires 
should be fostered and protected and their best develop- 
ment guaranteed. In so far as the coercive aspects of life 
in the George Junior RepubHc are concerned, it is an illu- 
sion to suppose that it has evolved either a government of 
the people or by them. All the machinery of force which 
characterizes the school, down to the guns (unloaded, I 
hope) which the guards carry, — as shown in photographs, 
— is superfluous and unnecessary. A good deal of it is, 
of course, a play which is educative in a certain sense ; that 
is, the children get a dramatized presentation, in which they 
are themselves the actors, of the way in which governments 
are run. A play, however, necessarily leaves out that partic- 
ular factor which makes the interest real. It is Mr. George, 
and the authority vested in him by the adult state, that is 
the real force back of all the children's laws. These must 
be, in reality, verified by him in order to be valid. 

The same thing is true, at the bottom, of the industrial 
and economic features. The Republic does not maintain 
itself, and there is only that discretion in pecuniary matters 
that is permitted by the superintendent. If boys go in rags 
or live poorly, that is approved by him as an instructive 
experience. 

Does this mean that there is no social self-organization 
on the part of the pupils.^ Not at all. Mr. George, per- 
haps unnecessarily, masks the flow of honor from him to 
the pupils, and substitutes for this a machinery of offices 
and laws ; but in doing this, does he prevent the children 

[66] 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM-^ THE REPUBLIC 

from getting out of their experience all that is possible for 
them in the understanding and appreciation of a superior ? 
That the laws do not prevent the children from feeling and 
knowing that Mr. George is the real mainstay, the real ruler, 
can hardly be doubted. But how is this controlling will to 
be approached ? Not by wheedling, not by personal service, 
smiles, or conformity to a few arbitrary rules of conduct. 
This will chooses to be approached, so far as the funda- 
mental necessities of food, clothing, and shelter are con- 
cerned, in one way, and that by the skill with which each 
individual shows he can play the game of the Republic. 

These boys are surely sharp enough to find out what 
their work means. Do they think that they are working 
for Mr. George, and that he, perhaps, is making his own 
living from the overplus of their efforts ? If this were 
so, it would suddenly reduce the Republic to an economic 
reality. The children, at least the intelligent ones who 
would act as leaders, probably know well enough that 
they are getting a greater return for their labor than 
they would elsewhere, and that the institution is mainly 
supported by private subscriptions, which Mr. George 
alone is able to obtain. What they must realize at the 
bottom is Mr. George's fatherliness, which is not an 
economic condition to them. His favor, however, in mat- 
ters economic, is bestowed not on individual boys as he 
may think they need it, but on the Republic as a whole. 
The honors and the honorable positions that are dispensed 
are created by Mr. George, but the least of these may be 
competed for by all the children in the Republic. 

The honorable position at the lowest end of the scale is 
that of a poorly paid laborer. Here there is no competition, 

[67] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

as there is in the real world, since the superintendent finds 
work for all. The more highly paid are more honored by 
their comrades, and of course by Mr. George also. At times 
it seems as if the Republic expected pure self-interest, apart 
from social instinct and the love of being honored and looked 
up to by others, to inspire the workers to thrift and ambition. 
But these former motives can hardly be the controlling ones, 
and if they were, such a condition would afford the gravest 
ground for complaint on the part of the public at large. 

One of the most desirable positions is that of police- 
man. Unfortunately the street experiences of a New York 
boy make him regard the policeman as about the summit 
of human greatness. But there are evidently other* more 
practical reasons at work. A policeman in the Junior Re- 
public gets pay, and during the time he is on duty he 
does no manual labor. How many policemen does the 
Republic need ? How is this decided ? If the mere selec- 
tion, but not the creation, of the policeman is in the hands 
of the children, it would seem natural for them to have as 
many policemen as possible. In adult society, on the con- 
trary, we have as few as possible, since their maintenance 
is a tax on the community. If food obtained by individuals 
in the Junior Republic depended on the combined efforts 
of all, instead of on the individual efforts of each, it would 
be a more thoroughly social institution than it is. If this 
were so, it might possibly be seen by the children that 
since they are but few in number they could do very well 
without special policemen, and perhaps without their ex- 
travagant legal paraphernalia also. 

It is not, however, certain that they would see this of 
themselves. The connection between policemen's support 

[68] 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — THE REPUBLIC 

and the economic basis might be remote enough so that 
in gratifying their immediate desires, including their social 
instinct, without intelligent reflection, they would at least 
lower greatly the earning power of the community. The 
negro republic of Haiti has degenerated economically, 
partly because positions in the army or government 
were multiplied far beyond their serviceableness to so- 
ciety. Meanwhile the means of production, roads, schools, 
etc., were being starved because there was not foresight 
enough to raise and apply taxes for their proper mainte- 
nance. Possibly American boys and girls might not make 
such a mistake, and the small number in the Junior Re- 
public would make both social oversight and foresight 
more practicable. But if they failed to see so widely or 
so far, surely they should have the advice of the superin- 
tendent, based on exact estimation and calculation. Mr. 
George at present uses his influence to advise individuals. 
Why should the little society as a whole not receive the 
best advice, — I do not mean commands, — instead of be- 
ing allowed to discover things by groping in the dark .? The 
trouble is, of course, — in answer to this, — that the little 
society as a whole does very little experimenting. Their 
constitution is already laid down and their laws are already 
promulgated. As a society they do not exercise much, if 
any, control over the means of subsistence. 

Advice, however, might be given, but not followed. If 
this resulted in a permanent lowering of the desirable 
activities of the little society as a whole, it is plain that, 
since it is, after all, but a part of a larger society, authority 
and force should be used, and the advice would become a 
command. Instead of a large number of policemen desired 

[69] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

by the society, which would result in lowering its produc- 
tiveness, just that number would be allowed which was 
judged by the superintendent to be sufficient. This is, 
however, the present condition. It is difficult to see how 
the service done by the policeman is felt by the children 
to be a service so needful that they would sacrifice anything 
for its continuance. A real social basis for the honor feel- 
ing, arising from the individual benefited by the service and 
bestowed upon an individual chosen to perform it, does not 
obtain. The policeman may be looked up to and honored 
because he is clever, has passed his civil service examina- 
tion (a necessary prerequisite for a policeman), and has got 
an easy job, and not because he is felt to be of much use. 
Honor has been bestowed upon him for some service, but 
not primarily by the citizens of the Republic. In his selec- 
tion, however, from among a number of candidates, there 
is a real although limited opportunity of bestowing honor. 
Here it is serviceableness in his office that ought to be 
judged, but how can this serviceableness be measured ? Is 
it not likely to be his affability and pleasant manner which 
count for most ? These are, of course, social services, and 
especially appropriate in a policeman, if at the same time 
other aspects of his duty are rigidly performed. The test 
of these latter may be passed up to judge, congress, and 
president, but it must come back finally to Mr. George. 
The difficulty is that the Junior Republic cannot fail or 
go to pieces, and cannot even be lowered permanently in 
economic or legal well-being. 

This is, of course, as it should be. Children have a right 
to be protected from economic strain. This is the most 
fundamental fact about children from a societary point of 

[70] 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — THE REPUBLIC 

view. To come into contact with real economic conditions 
too early stunts mental and moral growth. Children are 
like seedling plants which put forth leaves and begin to 
strike root on nourishment which they did not elaborate 
for themselves. Partly embryonic from a physiological 
standpoint, they are still more so from a social one. 
Schools are social embryos. They cannot be little states 
modeled after that of adults. A physical embryo may 
be provided with gill slits, but it is not a fish ; it may 
have the sauropsidian liver, but it is not a reptile. 
Neither is it simply a little edition of an adult human 
being. 

Similarly with the school. It cannot be simply a repro- 
duction of an adult society, and yet the laws which govern 
it and the motives which actuate its components must be 
at the same time really social and show plainly that they 
are developing into something better. Progressive change, 
therefore, rather than the fixity of a constitution, we should 
expect to find characteristic of a true child society. Its 
point of contact with adult society is as vital as the func- 
tion of the placenta in the physical embryo. Since the 
school is an organism which is the result of conscious 
thought, we must study it to find out what this point of 
contact essentially is. If it is of such a nature as to 
hamper the best spontaneous development of the school 
itself, either by being too lax or too stringent, the organ- 
ism suffers, and society as a whole is defrauded of its rights. 

Two important points of contact, as we have tried to 
show in our analysis of the Junior Republic, are the appli- 
cation of force and the protection from economic strain. 
But it is just at these two points that the management 

[71] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

of the Republic tries without success, except as a play, 
to imitate adult society. Economic conditions and the use 
of force enter into every school. Their favorable or un- 
favorable action is keenly felt. But the children cannot 
be held responsible for the results, and although they may 
receive the benefits, they cannot wisely or profitably con- 
trol either of the factors at work. 

Mr. George's problem, however, was to develop the chil- 
dren by getting them to use whatever power of social self- 
activity and social initiative they did possess, rather than 
to have them depend constantly on the command or direc- 
tion of a superior. It is only where failure is possible that 
this result can be obtained, and it is in the comparatively 
non-coercive features of the Republic that we actually see 
such a possibility realized. This comes out in business 
ventures. A Junior Republic capitalist takes, for example, 
a contract. He hires such boys as he can depend on. If it 
is a restaurant he is running, he must please his custom- 
ers, or they may go to other places. If his plan does not 
work, he soon loses money and fails. If he succeeds, he 
has employed a number of laborers in positions which they 
like better than certain others. They are loyal to him as 
he to them. There are honor motives on both sides, arising 
from the differentiation of talent or on account of property 
won by work or serviceable insight. The boy is a real leader 
for real purposes which he can measure and control. Such 
a social situation, however, exists within the circle protected 
by force, and could be applied to other needs or aspirations 
than to feed a clientele or to enrich one's self. What range 
of opportunities for such plans and schemes does the 
Republic really afford ? 

[72] 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — THE REPUBLIC 

Is it not true that these opportunities are limited largely 
to economic and legal matters, and do not rise frequently- 
enough into the higher sphere of idealism which is pecu- 
liarly the heritage and the functional place of children and 
adolescents ? The reduction of book learning to a falsely 
economic basis is an indication of this fact. Curiosity about 
the non-legal and non-economic world, wonder and admira- 
tion of nature, joy in construction of things that have no eco- 
nomic value, — boats, cars, clubs, dramas, etc., — even acts 
of unpaid labor for social loyalty and devotion, quite capable 
of being socially organized, are natural to children, and are 
much more essential and fundamental to the life of society 
than premature skill in earning a living. 

It is, in fact, the development of such idealisms in the 
shape of science, whether of nature or of humanity, which 
have created our modern life with the vast industrial system 
on which it floats. It is these, too, which hold it together 
in the face of destructive tendencies, and which we hope 
may yet be able to improve the present imperfections under 
which we suffer. To develop these idealistic characteristics 
of children, it will be noted, has always been the aim of 
our culture schools, and in this they partially succeed. 
Where they fail it is due to imperfect understanding not 
only of the child as an individual but of children in their 
social relationships, rather than to an error in the aim itself. 

The motto, l^^hing^without labor, is one which is 
much more suitable for the Junior Republic than for a 
home or a school composed of normally constituted and 
normally situated American children. The function of 
the Junior Republic, as Dr. Lincoln points out, is mainly 
the rebuilding of moral ruins. The children are already 

[73] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

preternaturally and morbidly sharpened on just these legal 
and economic aspects of life. To show them what these 
powers are, at least to some extent, and to show them that 
they do not necessarily hurt, it may be wise to emphasize 
them in such a school. The children are probably over- 
individualized before they come. The cruel necessity for 
self-maintenance and self -protection has been forced upon 
them, and has already tended to degrade them socially. 
The narrow virtues of individual self-control rather than 
the service, care, and thought of others may be the only 
ones which powerfully appeal to them, and which at the 
start can be successfully added on to their earlier experi- 
ences. That to some extent, at least, the conditions and 
the rewards of this control come from their own compan- 
ions rather than from Mr. George, affords an opportunity 
for their debased feelings and low views of life to rise to 
something more truly ethical and social. But just in pro- 
portion as this is true, the Junior Republic, without the 
substitution of something more educative for its exagger- 
ated economic and legal features, does not form a good 
model for the democratic American school to imitate. 

It may be that the school city of Mr. Gill arose as such 
an imitation, or it may have been an independent concep- 
tion. This is a plan of organization which consists in put- 
ting into a school grade the government paraphernalia of a 
ward or district of a city, or sometimes of the city itself, 
in having laws, district courts, attorneys, etc., and especially 
policemen. In a day school economic factors are of course 
impossible. 

In New York City, where the question of imitating pres- 
ent city government gives rise to some qualms, the Ray 

[74] V 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — THE REPUBLIC 

System is sometimes used. This is modeled after Roman 
fashions, and provides tribunes, senators, lictors, etc. It 
will be noted that the focus of attention is still occupied 
with government functions rather than with broad social 
activities. True, in adult society, government functions 
are indispensable and decisive, but they exist mainly to pro- 
tect other interests which the citizens have originated and 
which they hold steadily at heart. These interests, too, are 
not wholly individualistic and selfish, but are such as re- 
quire cooperative organization for their development. 

In a school we have the necessary force, represented by 
the teachers, to protect all real educative interests likely 
to arise. The added compulsive force of the children ought 
not to be required. It is enough that they tacitly acquiesce 
in its administration. Their effort and cooperation should 
rather be enlisted in the work of voluntary committees or 
groups, brought together naturally by a common interest 
or purpose. 

The term " self-government " has often been a mislead- 
ing one in educational discussions. It has frequently been 
used to signify self-control, either in the individualistic 
sense, or as the self-direction of groups without outside 
compulsion. In either of these interpretations self-control, 
which is of course essential to all high social development, 
goes far beyond the requirements of government. What is 
really needed in our schools as a preparation for democracy 
and our highly differentiated society is not self-government, 
but _selfHContrgl and the self-direction of groups. 

It is the latter requirement which is the most signifi- 
cant, and also the least understood. In adult society self- 
directed groups abound. Every church in America is a 

[75] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

good example of this fact. In earlier times a church was 
an affair of coercive government. Forced taxes were used 
for its support, and attendance was compelled by fines. It 
is plain that this was a wrong use of force, which is now 
applied only for the purpose of protection, or sometimes to 
foster externally, as when taxes are remitted on church 
property. The church, however, directs its internal affairs 
without compulsion. Voting or parliamentary rules of pro- 
cedure are often used, but it is plain that they have quite 
a different significance from what they have in the state. 
In the church they mean merely a registration of opinion, 
but no compulsion follows. Individuals who are dissatisfied 
can leave the church. No one, on the contrary, can avoid 
the control of a government unless he leaves the country 
and swears allegiance to another one ; and even in this 
case, in the most important matters, the laws are the same. 
Extradition, too, if he has broken the law, may follow him 
to another state. Besides churches, there are committees, 
voluntary organizations, etc., which carry on projects and 
interests, and hold themselves together and are self-directive 
without the need of compulsion. They are founded on the 
common purposes and the natural social capacities and 
affinities of their members, and are free, voluntary, and 
highly social only because they are easily capable of going 
to pieces. To succeed here, even as a follower, is an honor ; 
to lead, a triurhph. 

It is the introduction into our schools of such voluntary, 
self-directed purpose groups, rather than the functions of 
coercive government, which may be expected to gratify the 
social instinct of the children, to develop their resourceful- 
ness and initiative, and to fit them for the complicated life 



THE SCHOOL AS AN ORGANISM — THE REPUBLIC 

of present society. It is in this direction that the school 
may show itself naturally and easily as an embryonic social 
organism, manifesting its own laws of growth, rather than 
as prematurely molded after the model of a not too perfect 
adult community. 

References 

1. The George Junior Republic, a report of the Bureau of Labor 
and Charities, Syracuse, New York. 

2. Mr, William I. Hull, "The George Junior Republic," Publica- 
tion of the A7nerican Acade77ty of Political and Social Science, 
No. 205, August 10, 1867. 0- " ;. ~ 

3. Hull, op. cit. 

4. Dr. David F. Lincoln in The Coming Age. Boston, January, 
1900. 

5. Hull, op, cit. 



nn 



CHAPTER V 

THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

Among the most significant of the educational experi- 
ments of a social nature that have appeared in recent 
times, is what is familiarly known as the Dewey School. 
This school was started by Professor Dewey, when he 
was in Chicago University, in order to work out some of 
his educational theories (l). As designed by him, the in- 
stitution no longer exists, but it has been merged with 
the Emmons Blaine School, originated by Colonel Parker. 
The combined school is now under the direction of The 
University of Chicago. 

It will be impossible, in an essay of this character, to 
give a satisfactory account of Professor Dewey's point of 
view as an educator. This springs from his position as a 
philosopher, which is again necessarily implicated with cer- 
tain very strong and original views in logic, epistemology, 
psychology, and ethics. The general trend of these views 
is quite in the line of the modern movement in these studies. 
Psychology is looked upon as essentially functional, and 
although differing greatly in detail from James, Peirce, 
Schiller, Bergson, and other pragmatists who are at all 
careful about their presuppositions, Professor Dewey, in 
agreement "with these authors, makes will or intention the 
prominent or controlling feature of the science. In logic 
the modern thought has been, since Mill, to emphasize 

[78] 



* THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

inductive thought as a whole process, in which deduction 
plays a subordinate part (see chapter on Reasoning) . Expe- 
rience, fact, verification, are regarded as the real sources of 
validity of all categories, which, instead of being set eternal 
in the heavens, are really nothing more than working 
hypotheses. In ethics the discussions of ethnology have 
compelled a similar point of view. The moral nature is 
thought of as a result of successful social experience, and 
it is shown that different times produce different con- 
sciences as well as different manners (2). 

Professor Dewey, in his analytic writings, has ably car- 
ried out these views, which are not positivistic in the usual 
sense of the word, and have no quarrel either with theology 
or philosophy, since they are themselves philosophical or 
speculative in the best sense. To show their peculiar 
strength or weakness, a much more thorough examination 
would be necessary than is possible here. 

As a true pragmatist, however, Professor Dewey was 
forced to do more than analyze. It was essential that he 
should carry on the experimental life, and not only test his 
theories by practice, but obtain from this practice the 
necessary corrections of his theories. For this no better 
field could offer than the school, and especially the elemen- 
tary school, where social as well as logical motives are 
comparatively simple and undisguised. 

Professor Dewey regarded his school as a laboratory, 
and called it an experimental school. He started not so much 
from the point of view of the child, as from that of the 
course of study, and his aim was to find a course of study 
which, after being thoroughly tried out in this school, 
would be suitable for application in others. This accounts 

[79] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

for some features which have often been found objection- 
able by so-called good disciplinarians. The material or 
activities to be presented to the children, after being 
worked out by the teachers beforehand, must not be forced 
upon them by too great enthusiasm or by suggested 
coercion. The children must be allowed the opportunity 
to show their dissatisfaction and restlessness if their inter- 
ests are not naturally engaged. While they did not initiate 
any leading portions of the course of study, the children 
were expected to cooperate in the details of its execution, 
and were practically permitted the freedom of rejection. In 
its application to other schools such freedom was never 
presumed. It was only for the purpose of the experi- 
mental school that it was to be tolerated. 

Whether the children of the Dewey School knew that 
this was the theory back of their lessons is not so impor- 
tant. They soon enough discovered its working effects. 
These effects, however, were at no time, during any visit 
of mine to the school, productive of noticeable disoi'der. 
New adaptations of the course of study were constantly 
being made. Phases of work which attracted the children 
were also being discovered. On the whole, the children 
were interested in their work. Such a degree of interest, 
indeed, as they manifested is never to be found in a 
school which is clamped down to prevent natural reaction 
on the part of the pupils. Schools of this latter type are 
equally experimental, although as a rule the experimenter 
is not provided with sufficient intelligence to know when 
to stop. 

Professor Dewey states that there were four principal 
problems which were worked on from the beginning of 

[80] 



^ THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

the school: (i) the question of the unity of the child's 
experience, and the need for maintaining the connection 
between home and school life ; (2) the question of import- 
ing richer subject-matter into the usual seventy-five or 
eighty per cent of merely form studies ; (3) the connecting 
of these necessary formal studies — reading, writing, and 
arithmetic — with subjects which appeal to the child on 
their own account ; (4) individual attention, which, it was 
hoped, would be secured by small grouping of eight or 
ten in a class. In working out these problems, " shop- 
work with iron and wood, cooking, and work with textiles 
(sewing and weaving) " were emphasized. A certain amount 
of geography, scientific work, chemistry, and art was natu- 
rally correlated with them. On the history side primitive 
occupations were used, designed to show the child the 
steps of progress and development, especially along the 
line of invention, by which man was led into civilization." 
The groups or small classes were formed at first of children 
of "different ages and attainments," since it was believed 
that "there were mental advantages in having the older 
assume certain responsibilities in the care of the younger. 
As the school grew it became necessary to abandon this 
method, and to group the children with reference to their 
common capacities. These groupings, however, were based 
not on ability to read and write, but upon similarity of 
mental attitude and interest, and upon general intellectual 
capacity and alertness." The groups were always formed 
by the teacher in charge. 

Two general and closely related aims of the school were 
to give the children whole activities rather than small sec- 
tions of work ; and, by bringing the children into contact 

[81] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

with various teachers and various influences, to prevent 
the isolation which is often the result of the grade system. 
Such a purpose is evidently of a highly social character, 
especially from the standpoint of the relationship of the 
children to the essence of the past life of society. A clear 
insight into the past is at least one way of grasping the 
more complicated elements of which the present is composed. 

Professor Dewey's book and his articles on education 
are full of suggestions and demands which, if capable of 
being carried out, as the reader is prone to understand 
them, would probably realize the beginning of a true social 
democracy in the school. There are no unnecessary eco- 
nomic or legal complications. Essential societary organiza- 
tion is seen to be a much broader affair than mere 
government, and must affect the course of study rather 
than confine itself to policing. The aims and ideals of 
a true culture, rather than a narrow preparation for life, 
are held constantly before the mind. " Education is life, 
not a preparation for life." The school is often described 
by him as a social embryo, and the spontaneous interest and 
attention of the children are spoken of as the sine qua 
non of the teacher's art. 

Between some of the most significant social ideals for 
the school and the particular exemplification of them as 
expressed in Professor Dewey's writings, there is, how- 
ever, so far as the present writer is able to understand it, 
an irreconcilable gap. On the one hand. Professor Dewey 
gives a clear and logical account of many of the social 
needs and functions of a school ; on the other, things 
as they are worked out in the school itself, and de- 
scribed by him as examples, fail to convince the observer 

[82] 



THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

that they would actually fulfill the necessary requirements. 
As the politicians say, he does n't deliver the goods. No 
doubt the realization of any theory of education always 
meets with serious obstruction in practice, — lack of under- 
standing on the part of the teachers, and material deficien- 
cies as well as the nature of the children themselves ; but 
these difficulties should return upon the theory and mod- 
ify it, if it is to maintain itself as a guide and remain 
free from the suspicion of being, to a considerable extent, 
a priori and ready-made. A less seemingly perfect and 
logical theory may thus be really a truer working hypoth- 
esis and a more effective means of promoting both theoret- 
ical and practical progress than one apparently strong in 
every part. 

Professor Dewey sees very clearly the tremendous social 
defects of the usual type of school of the present day, — 
its narrowness and dullness, its isolation from life and the 
isolation of the children from one another, its emphasis on 
the mere absorption of facts by uncooperative individuals, 
its competitive standards of success, the negative character 
of its discipline, — and he rightly claims for a reasonable 
education more active work, where it is not a crime to 
help one's neighbor, but where a " spirit of free communi- 
cation, of interchange of ideas, suggestions, results, both 
successes and failures of previous experiences, become the 
dominatmg note of the recitation " (3). In another pregnant 
passage he says, " We must conceive of work in wood and 
metal, of weaving, sewing, and cooking, as methods of 
life, not as distinct studies. We must conceive of them 
in their social significance, as types of the processes by 
which society keeps itself going, as agencies for bringing 

[83] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

home to the child some of the principal necessities of 
community hfe, and as ways in which these needs have 
been met by the growing insight and ingenuity of man ; 
in short, as instrumentalities through which the school 
itself shall be made a genuine form of active community 
life, instead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons. 

" A society is a number of people held together because 
they are working along common lines, in a common spirit, 
and with reference to common aims. The common needs 
and aims demand a growing interchange of thought and a 
growing unity of sympathetic feeling. The radical reason 
that the present school cannot organize itself as a natural 
social unit is just because this element of common and pro- 
ductive activity is absent. Upon the playground, in games 
and sport, social organization takes place spontaneously 
and inevitably. There is something to do, some activity to 
be carried on, requiring natural division of labor, selection 
of leaders and followers, mutual cooperation and emulation. 
In the schoolroom the motive and the cement of social 
organization are alike wanting. Upon the ethical side the 
tragic weakness of the present school is that it endeavors 
to prepare future members of the social order in a medium 
in which the conditions of the social spirit are eminently 
wanting." 

What more admirable short description of the social ideal 
of the internal organization of the school could be written 
than the last of these two paragraphs ! 

But how adequate, it must be asked, are the means pro- 
posed for carrying this out ? Work in wood and metal, and 
the like, may sometimes be instrumental in this direction, 
but that depends entirely on who it is that realizes them as 

[84] 



* THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

instrumentalities. Primitive people found them exceedingly 
important. They are also necessary functions of modern 
civilization. But although these social wholes of the past 
and the present have found such activities useful and 
necessary to the maintenance of their social efficiency, it 
does not follow that it would be a social advantage for 
every one to be able to work in wood, metal, or the prepa- 
ration of food. Professor Dewey selects these activities 
partly because they are simple and partly because they 
are historical. In a group of a dozen children, weaving, 
for example, is proposed by the teacher. In the usual 
teacher's way he tries to get them interested. In discus- 
sions with them he plans the work and arranges for a 
certain division of labor among the dozen. They may see 
the interconnection in the various parts of the work, 
observe the economy in the division of labor proposed, and, 
on account of its simplicity, may grasp the wholeness of 
the product. If to understand the process of weaving as it 
is never done at present is the chief aim, this is accom- 
plished. But if it is the creation of society, and not of 
Indian mats, which is the aim, it is to be observed that the 
children have no real responsibility in this respect. The 
boy who starts a restaurant in the George Junior Republic 
is responsible for its success or failure, because the project 
started with him ; he may modify it at will, and he may 
fail. The children who are weaving mats under the direc- 
tion of a teacher cannot fail. They may not succeed with 
the mats, and they may be disappointed as a result ; but the 
responsibility is that of the teacher, and the success of the 
undertaking depends on his inspiration, on his judgment 
and sense. The teacher is always the leader, and the 

[85] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

children are directed by him. They are not even voluntary 
followers. The groups are made by the teachers according 
to their judgment of the personnel and the number which 
is best. No pupils are free to leave. The freedom and 
spontaneity of that social organization of which Professor 
Dewey speaks cannot arise, as it does on the playground, 
where there is a free selection of leaders, strict division of 
labor necessary for the particular game, and exclusion of 
those who are superfluous, unwilling, or socially unattract- 
ive and inefficient. The " motive and cement " of social or- 
ganization, if not wanting, is at least not cohesive enough to 
bind the children together should the teacher be removed. . 
Despite the fact that a great many of Professor Dewey's 
theoretical statements seem to demand it, the work is not 
tested in its social aspects as a nurseryman tests his seed- 
lings, to see if they can take care of themselves, and of 
their own organizing force overcome resistance and accom- 
plish results in the same spirit which should be expected 
of them later on. Under these circumstances the gap 
between the school and life must still show itself. The 
"tragic weakness " of the school from the social standpoint 
of democracy may be carried to a higher plane, but it must 
still exist. 

Professor Dewey analyzes admirably the working out of 
an impulse or interest, and shows that this means " running 
up against obstacles, becoming acquainted with materials, 
exercising ingenuity, patience, persistence, alertness ; it of 
necessity involves discipline — ordering of power — and sup- 
plies knowledge. Take the example," he says, "of a little 
child who wants to make a box. If he stops short with the 
imagination or wish, he will certainly not get discipline. 

[86] 



THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

But when he attempts to realize his impulse, it is a question 
of making his idea definite, making it into a plan, of taking 
the right kind of wood, measuring the parts needed, giv- 
ing them the necessary proportions, etc There is involved 
the preparation of materials, — the sawing, planing, sand- 
papering, making all the edges and corners to fit. Knowl- 
edge of tools and processes is inevitable. If the child realizes 
his impulse and makes the box, there is plenty of oppor- 
tunity to gain discipline and perseverance, to exercise effort 
in overcoming obstacles, and to attain as well a great deal 
of information." 

How very true ! But all on one condition, namely, that 
the child continues to want to make the box. At this point 
of voluntary control appear the really personal and social 
factors. If, in a misguided moment, a small child said he 
wanted to make a box, and found gradually unrolling before 
him not his idea of the making of a box but that of his 
teacher, who keeps him at it, the above general analysis, if 
applied to such a case, would need to be very materially 
modified. 

Unfortunately Professor Dewey actually fits his analysis 
to just such a case. He goes on to say : " The little child 
who thinks he should like to cook has little idea of what it 
means or costs, or what it requires. It is simply a desire 
to 'mess around,' perhaps to imitate the activities of older 
people." But if this is so, would it not be well to find it out 
at the beginning, and if the child's real idea or plan shows 
no likelihood of enlarging in such a way as to be his perma- 
nent possession until the work he plans is finished, is it 
social or logical to substitute for this another plan of cook- 
ing which contains the meanings and requirements that the 

[87] . 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

teacher sees ? The child may get discipline and knowledge 
out of this, but they are not the kind of discipline and 
knowledge which Professor Dewey seems to have had in 
mind when he wrote the analysis we have just quoted. 

In the case we are citing, the cooking went on. " One of 
the children became impatient at having to work things out 
by a long method of experimentation and said : ' Why do we 
bother with this .'* Let 's follow a recipe in a cook book.' 
The teacher asked the children where the recipe came from, 
and the conversation showed them that if they simply fol- 
lowed this they would not understand the reason for what 
they were doing. They were then quite willing to go on 
with the experimental work " ! 

To follow that work will give an illustration of just the 
point in question. " Their occupation happened that day to 
be the cooking of eggs, as making a transition from the 
cooking of vegetables to that of meats. In order to get a 
basis of comparison, they first summarized the constituent 
food elements in the vegetables, and made a preliminary 
comparison with those found in meat. Thus they found 
that the woody fiber or cellulose in vegetables corresponded 
to the connective tissue in meat, giving the element of force 
and structure. They found that starch and starchy products 
were characteristic of the vegetables, that mineral salts were 
found in both alike, and that there was fat in both, — a small 
quantity in vegetable food and a large amount in animal. 
They were prepared then to take up the study of albumen 
as the characteristic feature of animal food corresponding 
to starch in vegetables, and were ready to consider the 
conditions requisite for the proper treatment of albumen — 
the eggs serving as the material of experiment." 

[88] 



THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

They went on to experiment quite successfully with the 
white of the egg, and at the end, as Professor Dewey says, 
" were prepared not simply to cook eggs, but to understand 
the principle involved in the cooking of eggs." 

It is certainly not educative " for a child simply to desire 
to cook an egg and accordingly drop it into the water for 
three minutes, and take it out when he is told," as Professor 
Dewey says ; and if the child did truly " realize his own 
impulse by recognizing the facts, materials, and conditions 
involved," and then continued to regulate his impulse 
through that recognition, it would be educative, as Professor 
Dewey says again. But who can think that this is what has 
been done ? There is no proof or indication of it. The child's 
impulse and the child's real point of view were evidently 
lost sight of quite early in the proceeding. The children 
are said to have been willing to go on with the experi- 
mental work, but after the teacher's talk and her plainly 
implied attitude, what alternative was there .? From a social 
point of view and as a social factor in the. class, how much 
further on is such a teacher, except perhaps in tact and 
skill in carrying out a difficult proposition, than the teacher 
who outlines such work as she thinks can be done, and sees 
that the children do it, without bothering much about their 
immediate impulses, their spontaneous and inevitable social 
organization, or the natural development of their point of 
view ? In both cases there is a social organization actively 
springing from the teacher, and in which the children take 
some part, but in neither case do the children stake them- 
selves upon the issue and feel that truly voluntary and 
creative responsibility which is rewarded by nothing further 
than the success, and humiliated by nothing further than 

[89] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

the failure, of cherished plans. It is the constant presence 
of vital will and intention which is at the bottom of all 
genuine effort, and this, rather than a prearranged simplic- 
ity of material or occupation, gives the wholeness to any 
activity. 

Where the children's deepest intention is to follow out 
the teacher's direction, to get into the spirit of it, to wel- 
come the task that is set, we have, whether the work is in 
weaving or in algebra, a highly moral and indispensable fac- 
tor in social education. Necessarily mingling with this, in 
various degrees according to the personality of the child, are 
factors of will which spring from more self-centered desires. 
Many children like such activities as weaving, for its own 
sake. The freedom of movement, the natural and unforced 
play of attention required, are quite enough to account for 
this, without the operation of formative social desires. But 
even small children also set themselves to much more diffi- 
cult and even formal tasks, and maintain their intention un- 
til accomplishment crowns their effort. This intention is 
the background motive of their obedience to the teacher. 

As an illustration of this I may quote the case, which is 
not at all unique, of a little five-year-old girl whose father 
read to her the story of Lamia from a book. She said 
nothing until years afterwards of the intention that was 
born of that experience, but it nevertheless controlled a 
large part of her life. She said that this was the first 
time she had noticed that people got their wonderful 
stories by reading. The thing haunted her and she set 
herself to the apparently formal task of learning to read. 
She went to a very poor school, submitted herself willingly 
to all the unskillful operations of a dull and inefficient 

[90] 



'. THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

teacher, and as a result accomplished her ambition in a 
comparatively short time. 

There are some children, and perhaps more than is sup- 
posed, who look upon weaving, picking cotton, etc., as fool- 
ish, even when they do not get that attitude from the home. 
They are doubtless comparing these operations with some 
more revered and cherished plans of their own. These 
plans need to be discovered, fairly dealt with, brought 
out into the open, and, instead of being criticised out of 
existence, helped along their way. If they are seemingly 
formal, sympathetic inquiry will probably find a germ of 
reality out of which they have grown. Being founded in 
personal will, itself derived from previous social contact, 
.they are the true starting points of further social organi- 
zation which can be real and effective only in proportion 
as it carries out the original energy of those genuine and 
too often unexpressed desires. 

To find the best possible course of study that can 
be organized by the teacher is a great work and of in- 
estimable value to education. To this result Professor 
Dewey has given the world a notable contribution. He 
has seen, theoretically at least, that it is the course of 
study rather than the rest of the daily life, as in Abbots- 
holme, or the legal and economic conditions, as in the 
Junior Republic, which is the essential work of the 
school, and into which the spirit of democratic social 
service ought to be introduced. 

But the best possible course of study, if organized by 
the teacher, gives us a teacher's tool rather than one for 
the children. No doubt every teacher's tool should be 
adapted to the children and to many of their instincts. 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

The children, moreover, ought not only to yield or receive, 
but to help in working the tool themselves. This is indeed 
truly social, so far as it goes. But in order to complete the 
social development needed for democracy, real leadership, 
which is, after all, the highest kind of social service, is 
necessary, as well as cooperative obedience. Its full limits 
and highest potentialities should be recognized in the 
school, and the children should, therefore, as true pragma- 
tists themselves, be permitted or helped to make their 
own course of study, to some extent, at least, and to find 
or make such tools and social organizations as they them- 
selves see to be necessary for the realization of their aims. 
In no other way can one be sure that the character and 
habits which we expect of them in life have really taken 
root and can maintain themselves when the children have 
left the school. When this is done, as an integral part of 
the school work, teachers may obtain not only a measure- 
ment of their own best efforts, but a better opportunity to 
study the children's social processes, and thus adapt the 
work, in which they as teachers are necessarily leaders 
and directors, to the social capacities of those with whom 
they deal. 

In this short review of the Dewey School the reader 
may have noticed that the cases which Professor Dewey 
offers as illustrations show the mental mechanism of the 
individuals, as such, much better than the nature of the 
groups or the little societies of which they form a part. 
While it is absolutely necessary to an understanding of 
the general problem to obtain clear and detailed interpre- 
tations of the mental happenings and development occur- 
ring in typical children, it does not follow that this is 

[92] 



" THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

enough, or indeed that it supplies the most important 
and controlling factor in the situation. Herbert Spencer 
seemed to be of the opinion that a calculus of the psychic 
traits of individuals would determine beforehand the nature 
of the groups which arise from their association, and this in 
spite of the fact that he claimed to regard societyras prior 
to the individual. The truth is, as already stated, that 
neither is actually prior, and yet society as it exists at any 
one time is much less plastic and more compelling from a 
causal standpoint than the nature of the individuals which 
compose it. 

In this respect, as Durkheim points out (4), there is 
something of a contrast between the biological organism 
and the organization of individuals called society. In the 
body the cell unit is, for the most part, permanent in place 
and hereditarily fixed in function. With the higher animals 
substitution of function among the different parts is very 
rare, and most apparent in the brain, which is the organ 
immediately subserving social action. The case is quite dif- 
ferent in all highly developed societies. Here individuals 
move freely from one position to another, and constantly 
change their roles, sometimes to a very great extent. For 
America especially, this feature is fundamental and char- 
acteristic. The successful mule driver of to-day may be 
the successful President of to-morrow. Every kind of equal- 
ity of opportunity for each and all is, as we are never tired 
of saying, the presupposition and the aim of democracy. 

Such interchange or development of social function is 
impossible without the greatest plasticity on the part of 
individuals. This plasticity, however, while it has a bio- 
logical basis, is useful only as it is played upon by society. 

[93] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

Habits of social action, not so permanent that they may 
not be changed if occasion demands, must be formed and 
used in building up the structure of society. The social 
situation in which a person finds himself, or the group 
with which he is in contact, has thus the most to do with 
his role or function in society and his success in life. The 
family in which the average individual is brought up has 
usually even more to do with his serviceableness to society 
than the one in which he is born. No doubt the possibilities 
must be latent in the individual, but different groupings with 
quite similar material produce entirely different results. 

If, then, we are to educate the children for democracy, 
it is the nature of the groups in which they work, the vary- 
ing constitution and development of these, and the reper- 
cussion of them on the constituent individuals, which form 
the most important element in the process. 

The group or society of which the teacher aims to be the 
leader and inspirer from a social standpoint is usually more 
or less of a mere aggregate, rather than an organization (5). 
There is every reason why the teacher should aim to organ- 
ize this aggregate. In no other way can he become really 
the leader. When this is not done, the aggregate does not 
remain in a neutral condition. Organization sets in, inde- 
pendently of the teacher. It is not always fully conscious 
of itself, but it is none the less influential. Certain boys 
or girls are looked to by the others for guidance, and 
become centers of disturbance. They are watched by the 
others for indications as to how far the class as a whole 
may go in opposition to the teacher. Sometimes there are 
chiefs for war and chiefs for peace. When a teacher runs 
against such a chief, it is no longer an individual he is 

[94] 



THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

dealing with, and even when he finds fault with some 
humble member of the tribe, unless the chief consents 
to ignore or to condone the treatment given, the teacher 
may meet with as much difficulty and silent antagonism 
as if the individual had been socially important. The 
flag of the tribe protects its feeblest member. 

Frequently more than one such group or clique can be 
found in a class, and although there may be some rivalry, 
there is usually a status quo. Those not in any group are 
left over, either as the teacher's pets, or as the off scouring 
of the class. When groups have once formed, the teacher 
who does not realize it is lost. His best resource is in 
some way to get hold of the leaders. In old-fashioned 
schools leadership was often determined by actual fight- 
ing (6). If the teacher " licked " the leader, he had the rest 
of the school. In modern city schools leadership is a good 
deal more subtile, and the appeal to force, by calling in the 
head master, or by physical punishment for offenses, is not 
very effective. The group still remains loyal, and treats the 
punishment as an act of war. This is just because such 
punishment is not at all a fight in which personal address 
and vigor have any part. The teacher, on the contrary, is 
merely calling in the organized force of the community of 
adults to which he belongs. This is known to be superior 
to any form of frontal attack. Guerrilla warfare is all that 
is possible. 

It is the impression of the present writer, due to a fairly 
wide experience of schools, both in the East and West, that 
at least fifty per cent of the higher-grade classes in the 
public schools are, to a greater or less extent, in such 
a state of^antagonism to the teacher. This is not always 

[ 95 ] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

carried so far as to prevent a certain kind of work from 
being done. The teacher may be respected as one would 
respect an officer of an opposing army, but he is not in 
any real sense a leader. It is also to be noted that the 
members of the children's groups, taken individually, have 
usually nothing criminal or even unsocial about them. It 
is the group to which they belong, rather than their own 
personality, which determines their conduct. Such organi- 
zations, however, even when largely instinctive and uncon- 
scious, are a menace to the best interests of the children, 
who, no matter what their achievements may be in read- 
ing, writing, and arithmetic, are getting an education in 
hostility to many of the best things in society as a whole. 
In some way the teacher must creep into or break into this 
child community, if he is to lead it out of its narrowness 
and set it on the way to a higher development. 

Sometimes the doors open by accident, and the teacher, 
if he realizes it, may enter naturally. A case told me 
by a distinguished Boston educator of his own experience 
when teacher of a ninth grade will illustrate this point. 
A case of discipline had arisen, and the teacher said to a 
certain boy, " Well, there is no doubt that I shall have 
to punish you." The boy replied in the presence of the 
class, " Oh, yes, punish me ; you're always down on me." 
This touched the teacher, and, being human enough to 
flare up, he said impulsively : "I'll leave it to the rest 
if you don't deserve it. More than that, I'll leave the 
class entirely to itself in deciding. I'll turn my face to 
the wall, and they can vote without my seeing them, and 
I'll never ask a boy how he has voted." The vote was 
reported to the teacher as unanimously in favor of 

[96] 



. THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

the boy's being punished. At this point the boy broke 
down completely, and through his tears said, "Well, it 
must be right, since everybody says so." 

The interesting and significant feature of this experience 
is the effect of the class sentiment on the boy. His attitude 
of defiance in the first place was evidently conditioned by 
his thought that the class was back of him ; and, indeed, so 
it might have been but for the action of the teacher. The 
case throws a strong light on the real nature of punish- 
ment. This is never the mere infliction of pain or other 
inconvenience. With a desirable social backing boys are 
proud of these signs of prowess. Although they may suffer, 
and sometimes give vent to the natural expression of their 
suffering, they are no more guided by this in their future 
action than is a martyr on the rack. Punishment is the 
disapproval and repression of the group one feels he be- 
longs to. Nothing else is punishment. It may sometimes 
require a rite or ceremony like the administration of pain 
to make it understood and to show that it is serious, but 
it is the spirit of exclusion which is the reality back of this 
physical expression. Indeed the infliction of some more or 
less revengeful pain often has the effect of reconcilement. 
By this act the community still remains in contact with its 
recalcitrant member. It puts him in a position where his 
fellows observe him closely. He is the central figure of the 
tragedy. The others watch him and imagine how he is 
feeling. If he acts in such a way as to awaken sympathy, 
either by heroism or by more or less dignified humility 
and repentance, the hate of the community generally turns 
to a degree of admiration, and the punishment is over. 
Capital punishment, unless where the imagination carries 

[97] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

the drama into the next world, is thus the only form which 
is quite hopeless from this standpoint. 

When a teacher administers punishment or reproof it is 
absolutely necessary that he carry with him the best_seJlti- 
ment of the class. He can do this on ordinary occasions, 
at least, only if the punishment be applied to prevent hin- 
drances, not to such activities as the teacher thinks are de- 
sirable, but to those which the class can be made sincerely 
to approve. To get in sight of the solution of such a prob- 
lem, no mere knowledge of individuals as such, or course 
of study, however excellent, will ever suffice. It is the 
social action of the class, the nature of the groups really 
at work, their aims and ideals, their leadership and organi- 
zation, which the teacher must find an opportunity to 
study, and, if possible, to modify or control. 

The most reasonable way out of the difficulties we have 
described would seem to be, not to hand over the strictly 
governmental functions to the children, although this may 
sometimes partially succeed, but to make some suitable op- 
portunity in the regular work of the school for real leader- 
ship and organization on their part. If this phase of work 
is to exclude the use of force, it must find an opening into 
the course of study. It must not be relegated to off days, 
Friday afternoons, or to the home or the street, but must 
be represented on the time-table. As we have seen, the 
leadership of the antagonistic class groups does not depend 
much, in modern city schools at least, on the use of force. 
These groups are attractive enough to hold themselves 
together without it. If, now, we can bring out the leader- 
ship involved in these mistaken efforts of the children, and 
use the force at the disposal of the teacher to foster and 

[98] 



THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

protect the organizations that would be formed, the class 
would get a lively sense of the benefits springing from the 
teacher's power, and would be more disposed to admit its 
use on other occasions. The leaders themselves would get 
an opportunity for a full swing, and they would get this in 
the presence of the teacher, and with his approbation and 
consent. The teacher might, to some extent, become a fol- 
lower in some groups, and offer advice and opinions which 
might not always be accepted by the leader. 

Indeed, if this did not sometimes happen, two alterna- 
tives would arise. Either the teacher would stand off and 
merely observe at a distance the operations of the group, 
or there would be a feeling on the part of the children that 
the teacher after all was the real leader of the group. Both 
of these alternatives would be fatal to this phase of educa- 
tion. The teacher needs to get into the groups as much 
as possible, but by no means as an authoritative leader or 
organizer. His advice must have no more weight than its 
evident good sense and its capability of furthering the real 
interests of the children will afford. When the class reverts 
to the previous condition of affairs, and when the teacher be- 
comes again the director, he will have an entirely different 
community to deal with. Not only will he have discovered 
some of the natural leaders (and who they are may often 
be a surprise to him), but he will have been able to learn 
a good deal about how the followers are influenced. Best 
of all, he will be regarded by the leaders as one of them- 
selves. If he is broad enough to allow his newly acquired 
experience to modify his old habits, they will be disposed 
to study his methods of leadership rather than to continue 
to waste energy in warfare. They remain conscious of the 

[99] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

power within them, which is shortly again to have oppor- 
tunity for exercise and display. Under such conditions the 
latent, underground kind of organization may find a normal 
outlet, an opportunity to become more conscious and pro- 
gressive, and at the same time it may provide the teacher 
with a natural opening into the heart of the children's 
social life. 

As will be seen, it is not a revolutionary or radical 
change of all school procedure which the introduction of 
self -organized purpose groups would bring about. Such a 
change means rather a conservation and development of 
the educational values that are already to be found in the 
real leadership of the teacher, although leadership on the 
part of many of the students would also be made possible. 

It might be asked, though hardly by practical people, 
why, if a given attitude or relationship between pupil and 
teacher is a good and social thing for one part of the day, 
something different is needed for another. Or, if a teacher 
can catch the spirit of true leadership which makes room 
for all the children as active and constructive followers, 
why he should not continue to lead throughout. This true 
leadership is of course excellent, but it will come much 
more surely and naturally as a result of the observation 
of children's independent groups than it ever can with- 
out them. For the very lowest grades, however, such an 
attitude is probably all that can be expected. But, as we 
have already tried to show, the true constructive power 
of a follower cannot be measured when he is under the 
direction of another, nor is it to be expected in a demo- 
cratic society that leadership should be confined to one or a 
few. We often hear that he who would command must first 

[100] 



THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 

learn to obey. Nothing could be truer, except its converse, 
that he who would obey in spirit and in truth must also 
know how to command. There is no individual in a demo- 
cratic community who has not found it necessary, on occa- 
sion, to direct others. This direction may not apply to many 
at a time, and it may not be for long, but when the oppor- 
tunity comes much more depends upon his action than 
when he played a follower's role. At present our society 
suffers more from the lack of true leadership, and the kind 
of insight and moraUty necessary for such a function, than 
from any other fault. The leader is so scarce that an undue 
premium is placed upon him. This shows itself strikingly 
in commerce as in politics, where the wage of even blunder- 
ing leaders forms an enormous tax upon the community. 

With greater practical experience and insight into what 
leadership really means, we may hope to produce more com- 
petent leaders to select from and more intelligent followers 
to select them. Besides being a test and measure of the 
capacity of the social work of the teacher to live and main- 
tain itself when his direction is removed, the self-organized 
group ought to afford a direct means of education designed 
to touch the democratic problem at the point of its culmi- 
nating service to the community at large. 

References 

1. John Dewey, The School and Society. 

2. Cf. Hermann Post, Der Ursprung des Rechts, 1876. 

3. Dewey, op. cit.,p. 29. 

4. Emile Durkheim, De la division du travail social, p. 367 seq. 

5. F. H. Giddings, Principles of Sociology. 

6. Cf. The Hoosier Schoolmaster. 

[lOl] 



CHAPTER VI 
SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

The reader has now before him some of the social needs 
which free, self -organized work would go far toward satisfy- 
ing. In each of the three schools studied in the previous 
chapters, we found elements of a high degree of social value, 
and an approximate solution of the problem of educative 
social organization. Space prevents us from studying other 
schools in detail, although one of them at least, the Ethical 
Culture School of New York, founded by Felix Adler, has 
arrived under Mr. Manny, its recent superintendent, at a 
high degree of social efficiency/* and would amply repay 
investigation. We must, however, hurry on to the prob- 
lem of the average grade school of the times, and at- 
tempt to show how it is possible, even with crowded 
classes and without special equipment, to obtain in the 
people's schools those cooperative and self-sustaining 
motives which are worthy of democracy and best able 
to measure the teacher's work. 

The experiences to be described may be called experi- 
ments, but not in the sense that they were instituted merely 
to see how they would turn out. They were experiments 
simply in the sense that all life is experimental, and were 
devised with the view that the development of intention 
and resourcefulness on the part of the pupil is the greatest 
and most undeniable duty of any form of education. They 

[102] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

are not, however, the outcome of any particular a priori 
theory of either individual or social action, and they have, 
therefore, the character of scientific data, from which use- 
ful generalizations may be made, capable of carrying both 
thought and practice into larger fields. The naturalness of 
the data is shown by the fact that in different schools, and 
in the same schools from year to year, a given piece of 
work is never repeated. As some one has said, " Constant 
change is the unchanging law of humanity." Different con- 
ditions and different children always produced different re- 
sults. There was nothing to justify any expectation that 
we should ever be able to obtain by our experiments an 
ideal course of study capable of being handed over to other 
schools. There was no hope that we should ever be able 
to stereotype the results in text-books and fix them upon 
the brains of a rising generation. 

The experiments naturally start from a background of 
dictated work derived from the usual course of study, and 
it was always a condition that no work was to be permitted, 
the plan of which the teacher did not approve ; although 
after it was started it might fail or succeed without the 
teacher's stepping in to bolster it up or to coerce its sup- 
porters. There never was any likelihood that in the lowest 
grades, at least, the children's self-organized work would 
absorb the whole of the school work or all the time on 
the programme. Dictated work which the teacher leads 
directly, and courses of study, however much they may be 
modified, will always be needed to some extent in the edu- 
cation of the young. 

Several years ago the present writer, in cooperation with 
two third-grade teachers in the Chicago and Cook County 

[103] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

Normal School (Miss Margaret Mclntyre and Miss Jessie 
Black) introduced the proposition of self-organized work to 
their pupils. Each teacher said to her class, with as much 
simplicity as was possible, something like the following : "If 
you had time given to you for something that you enjoy 
doing, and that you think worth while, what should you 
choose to do ? When you have decided how you would spend 
the time, come and tell me about your plan. You may come 
all together, or in groups, or each by himself ; but whatever 
you say you want to do, you must tell the length of time 
you will need to finish it, and how you expect to do it." 

We thus called for a plan as definite as possible, both as 
to time and materials. It was understood that if the teacher 
could not be convinced that the plan was feasible, or that it 
was sufficiently worth while, she would not allow it to begin. 

At first in one class there was but a single plan. This 
started with three boys, eight or nine years of age, who 
said they wanted to print. " How can you print ? " the 
teacher asked. "We have no printing press." "Oh, yes; 
Harry here (the real names are not used) has a press that 
his father gave him at Christmas, and if you will let us, 
we'll print a list of those hard words, the names of the 
days of the week, which you gave the class to spell. We 
will place a copy on the desk of every pupil, and you will 
see how quickly they will learn them." " How long will it 
take you .-* " the teacher inquired. " Three, or perhaps four 
half -hours. We can divide up the work so that we think 
we can get it done in that time." 

The teacher gave the period from 11.30 to 12 on Mon- 
day, Wednesday, and Friday. They chose the back of the 
room to work in, and they agreed to be as quiet as possible 

[104] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

so as not to disturb the rest of the class, which meanwhile 
was doing such work as the boys could best afford to miss. 
They succeeded admirably, and completed their work within 
the time specified. When they were fairly at work the rest 
of the class woke up, and the teacher was presented with 
a number of plans, many of them of a very mushroom char- 
acter, devised mainly to escape the regular work of that 
hour. But when the teacher asked in detail about the 
plans, how long they would take to finish, etc., these latter 
were spontaneously given up by the children, or enlarged so 
that they became more practical. After the printing group 
had finished their first contract, they still kept together 
with the idea of becoming class printers when needed. 

In the other third-grade class a similar group was started, 
which soon took in more boys who wanted to join. On one 
occasion the teacher found that they were not doing what 
they had planned for that day. She asked them what was 
the matter, and pointed out that if they did not do what 
they said they would, they would have to go back to their 
seats. They had a little consultation among themselves, 
and decided that there were too many in the group for the 
work to be done, and that they interfered with one another 
instead of helping. The group was thinned by its own 
action, and the work was finished successfully. This group 
also kept on for some time, and printed a number of things 
for the class. Here is a sample of their work. 

Criticism of Report of Group 2 on Beef Tea* 

The Group did not know all they should 
know about it. 

It was worth giving' 

[105] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 



1 



Some time after the beginning of these groups, and when 
nearly the whole class was engaged in one or another of 
them, Professor Albion Small paid them a visit. One of 
the boys said to him : " Look at those girls cooking. Now 
I don't see the good of that. But this work is just the 
thing for me. I am a very poor speller, and every word I 
set up I learn to spell." This group interested some of the 
families from which the boys came, for they were never 
tired of talking of it at home. One of the fathers, although 
a working man, contributed fonts of type to the value of 
^15. Pieces of work were taken home, and their merits 
and defects fully criticised. These printing groups had a 
leader, although he was not given any special name. 

In one class three cooking groups were started. The 
first of these was started to cook — "just to eat," as one of 
the members stated. It was at first composed of four girls 
and one boy. The initial preparations required a good deal 
of management. The mothers had to be persuaded to give 
money or material. One girl brought an old gas oven, and 
another a heater on which it was placed ; also a table had 
to be provided, and shelves for dishes. An attachment had 
to be made in order to use the gas. For this the permission 
of the principal of the school was required, and how best to 
approach him was carefully considered by the group. Books 
of recipes were obtained, and although the reading was 
difficult for third-grade pupils, much reading was done and 
the merits of different recipes were discussed. A cake was 
finally decided upon. I was called in as a guest when the 
cake was finished, and since it was a sacrament of friend- 
ship, I did my best to eat my piece. As we were sitting 
around, the boy said between his mouthfuls, " It seems to 

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SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

me this cake ain't as good as it ought to be." "What's the 
matter with it ? " was the rather sharp retort of the little 
girl who was the leader of the group. The boy, who was 
phlegmatic, replied without a ruffle, " Well, maybe it's the 
butter ; it might have been butterine." " You bought the 
butter," said the little girl. The boy said nothing, but later 
he went to the grocery store where he had bought it, and 
asked if it was butterine. The grocer, probably vexed, said 
among other things, " If you don't hke the butter, perhaps 
you'd better write to the Health Department." When the 
boy came back to school, he asked the teacher, " What is 
the Health Department, and what did the man mean by 
saying I'd better write.'* " The teacher told him, and said 
that perhaps it would be a good thing to write. 

This he did, and got back a sheaf of pamphlets. Most 
of them were too difficult for him, but in one was a marked 
passage telling how to test for butterine by noting the 
rate of melting. The whole group were so interested in 
this that they stopped cooking and started in on the test 
for butterine. They were quite successful, and they used 
the test on several occasions afterwards. 

By this time they had decided to keep all the recipes 
they used, and each made a cookbook for his or her own 
use. They obtained rubber stamps and "printed" these 
recipes, and although it became somewhat like drudgery 
later on, they insisted that no member of the group should 
shirk that part of the work. The experiment with the but- 
terine was also printed in their cookbooks. This is the way 
it ran (grams were used because the children could get no 
other weights in the school. The directions called simply 
for equal weights) : 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

EXPERIMENT WITH BUTTERINE 

5 grams butterine melted in 66 seconds. 
5 grams butter melted in 6o seconds. 
5 grams lard melted in 39 seconds. 
5 grams of tallow melted in 629 seconds. 
Test for butterine, Butterine smells bad when it melts because it 
has tallow and lard in it. 

It sputters when it melts because it has tallow in it. It melts 
slower than butter. 

Meantime, the children had seen in a window a man 
binding books, and they thought that it would be a good 
plan to have their cookbooks bound. They visited the 
bookbinder, and he showed them how to stitch the leaves 
together and make a stiff cover. As a consequence they 
all bound their books, an art which was copied by some 
of the other groups that needed it. 

After several experiments in cooking, the necessity 
of having their plans made the night before, so that every 
one would know what to bring for the next day, was seen 
to be so important that the group decided to have a chair- 
man, whose duty it would be to see that this was done. 
The original leader was, without debate, made chairman. 
The term " chairman " was attractive, and was copied by 
some of the other groups, but in a few cases, after being 
used, it was discarded, the children saying : " What do we 
want a chairman for ? Every one knows what to do, any- 
way." In the cooking group, however, the chairman was 
a necessity. 

The third or fourth thing that they wanted to cook was 
Charlotte Russe. When the group assembled there were 
no lady fingers. These were to have been brought by the 
boy. Since the cooking could not be carried on that day, 

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' SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

the children had to go back to their seats and do some 
work which the teacher outUned for them. They were 
very much vexed at the boy and talked of asking him to 
leave the group. The boy said, however, that the fault 
was not his, but his mother's. His mother had told him 
that she was tired of giving him money all the time. 

The group then went to the teacher about the mother 
problem. They wanted her to write to the mothers and 
say that they were to send the things the children asked 
for. The teacher did not look at the question in this light, 
and said she did not think that she could write to the 
mothers, since the group work was their own affair in 
which they must depend upon themselves. They talked 
the matter over again, and the chairman finally said : 
" Well, it wasn't Harold's fault. It never would have 
happened if we hadn't let Harold bring so many things 
that cost money. For all the things we have cooked he 
has brought more than any of the rest of us. What we 
want to do is to get it evened up. Then those who can't 
bring money can bring eggs or butter or sugar, but no 
one should have to bring more than his share." 

They perceived very clearly what they wanted, but they 
did not see the means by which it was to be accomplished. 
So they went to the teacher with the difficulty. " The re- 
cipes," they said, "give things by cupfuls or spoonfuls, 
while these same things are bought by the pound." The 
teacher pointed out to them that they could get, for in- 
stance, a pound of sugar and find how many cupfuls were 
in it, and then divide the cost of the pound by the num- 
ber of cupfuls. This idea they grasped at once. But after 
they had got the cost of material by the cupful, they did 

[109] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION. 

not see how it could be divided evenly among the pupils. 
The teacher again showed them the simple averaging that 
was necessary, and although averaging is not usually in- 
troduced into third grades and they were never shown 
again, they used this method constantly and without errors 
throughout the rest of their work. The plan of the chair- 
man to meet the mother problem turned out to be quite 
successful. 

This cooking group, as it was first formed, was very 
harmonious, and the resistance that they had to overcome 
was almost wholly from the outside. It was the introduc- 
tion of a new member which started friction and gave rise 
to internal resistances which for a time hampered the suc- 
cess of the work. A new pupil appeared in the grade, and 
as she was a merry, black-eyed little thing with attractive 
ways, she had an invitation to join from every one of the 
groups then organized. Of all these invitations she ac- 
cepted the one from the group that were cooking "just 
to eat." 

It was not long before trouble appeared. Bessy was 
constantly forgetting things. The chairman mothered her, 
pinning slips of paper on her coat to remind her, etc., all 
to no purpose. She would lick cream off spoons, refuse to 
wash dishes, etc., and, since the group were now in a little 
room by themselves, would act noisily, so that the rest of 
the group were afraid that their privileges might be with- 
drawn. At last they came to the teacher and complained, 
asking her to put Bessy out of the group. The teacher 
said : " I did not invite her, you know, to join your group ; 
but I am very willing to do what I can. Just now, how- 
ever, I have a meeting, and you'll have to wait here an 

[no] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

hour till I return ; then we can talk it all over." When 
she came back the children were gone, but on her desk 
was a note asking her to give the following papers, one 
from each member of the group, to Bessy. 

I think Bessy talks too much and I think she plays round the room 
too much, and I think she makes too much noise. Bessy did not 
bring her things while the others did to cook with. And she did not 
stay to print at nights after school only once or twice. She would 
not help wash the dishes. Then we told her we would put her out if 
she did not do the work, and we thought we could do better without 
her. Then she brought her things and helped wash the dishes, but 
she quarreled so. — L. 

I think that Bessy ought to get out of the group because she 
wants everything. — Harold. 

Bessy plays tag and she says, " This is mine, this is mine." And 
she is always fussing all the time. I think she ought to be put out 
of the group. — M. 

I think we could get along better in the group without Bessy be- 
cause she talks too much. And disturbs us too much and we can't do 
so much work. And she wants to do all the work and no one else to 
do any of the work ; she wants to do all the cooking. I think she 
should be put out. — M. 

Bessy plays tag when we are cooking and she is too fussy, and I 
think she talks too much and too loud and she is too noisy and she 
is always fussing and quarreling with the other children, and I think 
she ought to be put out of the group. — B. 

I think Bessy should be put out of the group because she does not 
help in printing and when we cook she quarrels with us. — S. 

The papers were handed to Bessy as the children had 
requested. After reading them she took up her pen and 
wrote the following reply, in which it will be noted the 
beginning does not hang very well with the admissions at 
the end. 

Well, what I think about it. I have always brought the things 
they told me to bring and when they told me to print I have always 

[III] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

done it. And to the other school we would talk so loud and I am so 
used to it. If they put me back again I would do lots better than I 
did before and I would bring the things they would tell me to and I 
would bring everything when they told me to and I would do 
everything. 

They did not, however, take her back, nor was she 
ever invited into any other group while she remained 
in the school, a fact which did not seem to depress her 
in the least. Her family moved again before the end of 
the term, and Bessy departed with them. 

The teacher asked the children why they had written 
the papers. The chairman replied that if one person told 
Bessy that the group didn't want her any more, she would 
be mad with that person (who probably would have been 
the chairman), and more than that, she might cry ; while 
now there was no one in particular to be mad at, and if 
she wanted to cry, she could cry by herself. 

To the student of government it is interesting to see 
how the children went to the teacher when it was a 
matter probably involving force. They wished to use the 
policeman power of the teacher to insure Bessy's removal. 
This, in case of any refusal on her part to leave, would 
naturally have been exercised. In the same way a clergy- 
man or member of a church who is voted out is compelled 
to respect this decision by force of law if in no other way. 
The law, however, stands outside of the organization itself. 

The method of writing on serious occasions was copied 
by some of the other groups. The following papers from 
another working group indicate a happier termination. 

I. Mildred as chairman. Mildred is not chairman and she wants 
to boss everything. I like her, but I do not want her to do every- 
thing. — L. 

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SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

2. What we think about Mildred. I think that Mildred is too bossy. 
I think that we ought to write to her and tell her what we think. She 
made a good chairman whether she bossed us or not, but she bossed 
us too much. — S. 

Mildred replies as follows : 

I think that what Sarah and Lila said was all right. I think that 
we will get along all right now and a good deal better. I think that 
the money is fixed. I think that we are going to have a better group. 

There was no doubt that Mildred had been bossy. We 
wondered indeed that the children had stood it so long. 
After this for a week Mildred was a marvel of self-control, 
but it wore on her and she persuaded her comrades to take 
turns in the chairmanship. Neither of them, however, had 
anything like the natural executive ability of Mildred, and 
they did not succeed so well. Nevertheless Mildred made 
no comment. When it was her turn again, the others asked 
her to be chairman all the time, and to this she consented. 
She at times broke out in the old ways, but the others bore 
with it, and she herself was evidently anxious to improve in 
this respect. It can hardly be doubted that all the members 
of the group had in this experience a real lesson in ethics much 
more practical and persuasive than any formal instruction. 

The third cooking group in this room was composed 
wholly of boys. They said: "We don't want to cook as 
these girls do. But if any one should be sick in the house, 
then we should like to be able to cook something." In ac- 
cordance with this, the first thing they attempted to cook 
was beef tea. They inquired into everything that made the 
beef tea nutritious. They were told that it should not look 
gray when it was done, as that shows that the albumen in 
the meat, which is of the same substance as the white of 

[113] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

an egg, has become hardened and cannot be digested so 
quickly. They beat out of pieces of the meat some of the 
juice and compared it with the white of an egg at the 
teacher's suggestion. They were perfectly free, however, 
not to do this if they had not wished to. This group did 
not last so long as the others, but broke up voluntarily, the 
boys joining other groups formed for other purposes. 

During the year this class formed only fourteen groups. 
Among them were a photograph group, a group for model- 
ing in clay, two sewing groups, two science groups, one 
printing group, and two groups for plays. The work of 
these groups was usually carried forward to a considerable 
degree of success. 

The photographic group was composed of several boys. 
They fitted up a closet as a dark room. They were always 
looking for information on photography, and teachers often 
brought them books and pamphlets. To some extent they 
were photographers for the class, and they took photographs 
of some of the plays and made lantern slides for them. 
After they had been at work for sevisral weeks the rest of 
the class wanted them to tell something of their work. The 
group were a little doubtful about the capacity of the others 
to understand, but the leader thought of something which 
he believed would help in this respect. During the period 
for group work he fitted up his camera and focused it on 
some buildings opposite. He then called out, one after an- 
other, each member of the class, made him put his head 
under the cloth, and asked him, "What do you see.?" "I 
see the buildings upside down." " Do you want to know 
why it's like that ? If you do, we're going to show you 
next time." 

["4] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

This they did, explaining how the rays of light cross 
one another in the lens. The boys of this group kept a 
record of their work; and, as with the cooking group, 
bound it in a book. One of the boys made a small pin- 
hole camera, which, without any lens, took some very 
fair photographs. 

One of the plays given in this room was The Sleeping 
Beauty. There was no dramatic version of this tale that 
the children knew of. They brought to school all the differ- 
ent editions of the story they could find, and started to 
turn it into dramatic form. This they did by arranging the 
cast first. "You may be the prince, and you the queen," 
etc. The members of the cast then began to extempo- 
rize the words. The action was thus first thought of. As 
they went on rehearsing, different members of the group 
would criticise the words used, saying, "That doesn't sound 
right." They avoided using big words or hard phrases 
from the book. They divided the story into scenes, made 
the costumes, and strung a curtain on a wire in front of the 
teacher's desk. They used the blackboard as scenery, draw- 
ing on it the castle seen through a forest. To bring this in, 
a scene was invented which consisted of the prince inquir- 
ing of two countrymen his way to the castle. It was not 
until after the play had been nearly fixed in its final form 
that they began to write it down. By this time there 
were changes suggested and accepted about which a dispute 
would sometimes arise afterwards, but one of the main rea- 
sons for writing was pride in the play. One of the boys of 
this group was very desirous of learning typewriting. He 
brought an old machine to school, and, among other things, 
made a typewritten copy of the play, which ran as follows: 

[IIS] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 



1st Fairy. 
2nd Fairy.] 
3rd Fairy. 
4th Fairy. 
5 th Fairy. 

Wicked Fairy. 



Good Fairy. 



The Play 

of 

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY 

Written by 

M. W. 

Given by Grade 3B. 

Scene I. 

" I give you beauty." 

" I give you the gift of dancing beautifully." 

"I give you the gift of being a good cook." 

" I give you the gift of good health." 

" I give you the gift of playing well on the 

harp." 
"Your daughter will grow to be 15 years 
old and then will prick her hand with a 
spindle and die of the wound." 
" She shall not die. She shall only sleep for 
• a hundred years." 
(Fairies go out.) 



Scene II. 
(The princess goes into the tower room.) 

Princess. Marjorie F. "What are you doing?" 
Old woman. Helen. " I am spinning, my dear." 
Princess. " Let me try." 

Old woman. " All right, my dear." 

(Princess pricks her hand. She falls asleep. All the 
people in the castle fall asleep.) 



Prince to a man. 
Old man. 
2nd man. 



Scene III. 
(Prince comes near the castle.) 

"What kind of castle is that?" 
" It is the castle of a monarch." 
" It is an enchanted castle. A long time ago 
a princess fell asleep in that castle. She 
was to sleep for a hundred years. She is 
sleeping there now." 

[1.6] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

(Prince cuts his way thru the hedge of thorns. He goes 
thru the castle, sees the people asleep. He goes 
into tower room, sees princess asleep, kneels beside 
her and kisses her hand.) 

Scene IIII. 

(The princess wakes up. Prince leads her to the King 
and Queen. All the people in the castle come and 
dance around the King and Queen.) 

This play created great interest in the homes, and the 
teacher was surprised to receive many requests from the 
mothers and other members of the family for permission to 
see it when it was presented. This, of course, was granted, 
and the simplicity of the play, with all the earmarks of 
genuine child production, was thoroughly appreciated by 
the audience. 

The attitude of the teachers with relation to this play 
was the same as in the other groups. I may perhaps call 
myself one of the teachers, for I came into the room very 
frequently while the children were rehearsing. I used to 
think over what I had seen the day before, and see if I 
could add anything or offer any suggestion that the chil- 
dren would take up. Sometimes the children would say, 
"That's right; let's do it that way," but at other times 
they would shake their heads and say No. It was at first 
a little disconcerting to be overruled, especially in matters 
where I was quite sure I was artistically correct ; but I was 
consoled by the reflection that only those criticisms which 
they freely and voluntarily accepted were the ones which 
entirely suited their stage of development, and when they 
rejected modifications of my proposing I saw that ethically, 
if not artistically, they were right. I felt that they were 

[117] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

standing on their own feet with perfect honesty of convic- 
tion. Indeed, until they refused to do something which I 
had recommended, I was never quite sure that they were 
really independent. I knew, too, that it was a better exam- 
ple, to their minds, of real service to them than if I had in- 
sisted on my proposals. 

To come in contact with realities in a child is the most 
attractive thing about teaching. It is these realities which 
we admire in children, and which afford the greatest pleas- 
ure to parents in their contact with them. In schools of the 
usual sort most of this naive originality is overruled and 
crushed. It is feared that it may lead to lack of discipline, 
and, moreover, where the initiative flows continuously from 
the teacher, there is little room for it, and it comes out 
accidentally, if at all. The teacher thus robs himself of a 
great part of the pleasure of his work, becomes formal, 
" teachery,"and at the same time blinds himself to the real 
capacities of the children. 

The time which was at first allowed for this work was, 
as already said, three half-hours a week, but after a short 
time many of the groups began to say to the teacher that 
they wished they could have more time. They were sure 
that they could do a great deal better if the time were 
extended. The teacher replied that she was not sure that 
every group could use the time well, and since it was a 
matter that concerned the whole class, she could not ex- 
tend the time unless she was sure of this. The children 
used part of their group-work time to discuss this, and con- 
vinced the teacher that all would be benefited. She accord- 
ingly extended the time, at first two half -hour periods, and 
later on, after further requests, to three quarters of an hour 

[ii8] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

per day. This contented the children of this age completely. 
Their power to plan seemed to be entirely used, and after 
this they never asked to have more time. The teacher 
noticed also that they were better satisfied to be carried 
along by her in work of her planning during the rest of 
the day than ever they had been before. 

From my experience with six third-grade classes I can 
say that no class ever asked for more time than an hour 
a day. These experiences thus show with a certain degree 
of conclusiveness that there is a distinct limit beyond which 
the children are not able to go. Whether it would always 
be best to go so far as this limit is not asserted. In the 
case cited it seemed, in view of the best interests and total 
work of the class, the wisest thing to do. The teacher con- 
stantly kept in mind the detail problems of her grade, partic- 
ularly reading, writing, and arithmetic. Many of the groups 
directly promoted interest and progress in the routine sub- 
jects, so that the class made as good an advance along these 
lines as any class had previously done. Leaving aside the 
higher concerns of character, resourcefulness, and social or- 
ganization, the teacher felt that, from the lower standpoint 
of subject-matter alone, the time allowed was amply justified. 

In this class there were four children who were never in 
any group. They did not desire to join any, and the teacher 
gave them work to do by themselves. They were all physic- 
ally rather inert, and were always pleased to do as well as 
they could anything that the teacher directed. 

In the other class, during this year, instead of fourteen 
groups there were thirty-eight formed, and there was no 
child who was not in one or more of these groups. This 
was in a class of fifty children, so that the percentage of 

[119] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

leadership was high, probably over sixty per cent, — if we 
allow for some who were leaders of more than one group. 
When such a result is possible with children eight or nine 
years old the outlook for democracy is good. Each child 
was in six or seven groups during the year, and there 
were usually about seven groups running at the same time. 
The teacher did not find these too many to keep in con- 
tact with, although there was some difficulty in getting 
time for consultation during the planning of each group 
and before it was started. The teacher pointed out this 
fact to the children, and it was proposed to put the plans 
in writing so that the teacher could read them at some 
other period. There was the advantage of definiteness in 
the writing, although children of this age only wrote the 
salient points, and verbal discussion was also necessary. 

These thirty-eight groups produced twenty-one plays 
and playlike representations in which the children them- 
selves took the parts, and five plays in which dolls, toy 
soldiers, or figures made out of paper and wood were 
used as actors. In the latter class there were three bat- 
tles. The Battle of Bunker Hilly The Battle of Manila , and 
The Battle of Thermopylce. The other two were girls' 
plays, — representing dolls of different countries, and the 
story of Bopeep. This classic was played with a box for 
a theater, the sheep being provided with tails which came 
off easily. In the former class there was only one battle, 
that of San Juan Hill ; but other representations, such as 
The Indian and the Htmter, The Wild West, and The Fire- 
men, had a good deal of the fighting element in them. It 
may be pointed out that this element in a play, while 
it probably springs from the fighting instinct, serves as a 

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SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

radiation and control for it. The boy gets the opportunity 
of seeing different sides. His imagination is appealed to 
rather than any real emotion of anger. He adopts the 
heroic attitude, which is chivalrous and knightly rather 
than bloodthirsty. The emotions of injury which are char- 
acteristic of the origin of war are really dissipated. 

Besides plays and representations, there were groups 
for clay modeling, for reading stories, for painting, for 
sewing, for cooking, for the observation of ants, for the 
study of birds, for printing, for woodcutting, for dancing, 
for room decoration, for making a " Spring book," for the 
study of the rules of baseball, for collecting postage stamps, 
for running a post office, etc. Other plays not yet men- 
tioned were Snow White, Beatity and the Beast, Three 
Bears, Dear my Soul, Decoration Day, Six Years and Six 
Fairies, Shepherd watching his Flocks, Cinderella, Red 
Riding Hood, Farmers, Policemen, Yachtsmen, etc. 

In the latter the group were yachtsmen, and made use 
of the blackboard, on which they drew first a deck and a 
mast, then, under orders from the captain, ran up rapidly 
in chalk a huge white sail. Each was at his post, one at 
the compass, another at the wheel. Land was sighted 
through an extemporized pair of binoculars. Sail was 
lowered and the anchor cast, after which the sailors 
went ashore. 

The Firemen was divided into three scenes. First, the fire- 
men were represented in their everyday routine, — getting 
up in the morning, athletic exercise, etc. Next a fire drill 
was given. Then there was a call to a fire. When the fire 
engine and hook and ladder wagon came in, — represented 
by small express wagons with ladders, etc., on them, — the 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

fire could not be seen. The engine was attached, however, 
with real rubber hose (from the garden) to a big hydrant 
drawn on the board at the side of the room. The board at 
the front of the room was covered with a large cloth. This 
was suddenly twitched down, and we saw a house in flames. 
These had been drawn with red and yellow chalk. The fire- 
men got to work, making swishing sounds to represent the 
play of water. Some climbed up the side of the house on 
ladders, and with blackboard erasers put out the flames that 
were pouring from the windows. Meanwhile other black- 
board erasers which had been put up to represent bricks 
were tumbling about the ears of the heroes. When the fire 
was put out the engine was detached, some remarks were 
made about the fire, and the squad retired in good order. 

In getting up this play nothing was written, but a good 
deal of fresh information was obtained. The boys visited a 
fire station, and hearing that one of the Normal students 
was a daughter of a fireman, wrote her a note, sending it 
through the post-office group, asking if she would come to 
them for half an hour. She did this, and found that they 
not only listened eagerly to all she had to tell them, but 
cross-questioned her to get the information they wanted. 
It is evident that a method which leads the children in- 
stead of the teacher to ask questions, although neither 
Socratic nor Herbartian, would be desirable in any work 
of the school. The subject-matter, too, is of a kind to give 
the children a little understanding of the social services of 
the city in which they live. 

Another of the plays which was not written, but which 
was original and carefully planned out, was The Indian and 
the Hunter. In this play two boys who were the only actors, 

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SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

as well as the authors, simply talked the matter over, and 
in a couple of days were ready to come before the class. 
Their presentation ran as follows. 

All the blackboards in the room were covered with chalk 
drawings of trees. At one end of the room was a large figure 
of a fox which had been painted for them by one of the 
practice teachers. At the beginning of the play they pulled 
down the blinds and announced to the audience that this 
was the woods. The hunter, appropriately dressed, came 
in at one of the doors at the back of the room, and walked 
through among the desks, which represented trees. He had 
his gun under his arm, and was evidently looking for game. 
He occasionally caught sight of the fox and raised his gun ; 
but it either seemed too far or got away from him. About 
this time, at another of the doors in the back of the room, 
an Indian was seen to skulk along, hiding behind the trees. 
After a little while the hunter came across a toy revolver 
lying on the ground. He picked it up, and, speaking for the 
first time, said to himself : " What's this .? Some one has 
been here," He pocketed the revolver, went on cautiously, 
and found an arrow. " An Indian has been here." He went 
on much more carefully than before, this time up to the 
teacher's desk. When he came across the fox, and was just 
about to shoot it, an arrow whizzed by his ear. He turned 
around, and saw immediately advancing upon him the In- 
dian with upraised club (a baseball bat). He let fly the dis- 
charge (a piece of chalk) intended for the fox, directly at the 
Indian, who fell heavily to the ground. This was the end of 
the play, but in a little while the Indian got up and walked 
away. The rest of the children criticised this, asking whether 
or not the Indian was supposed to come to life again. 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

The rumor of this play reached the children of the first 
grade, who sent up a request that it might be repeated for 
their benefit. The boy who played the Indian then came 
and told the teacher that he thought they should change 
the play somewhat, since they were going to give it to first- 
grade pupils. " No doubt Indians had to be killed," said he, 
"but first-graders would not be able to understand that"; 
and he proposed therefore to adapt this portion of the play 
to their moral perceptions. The play was thus amended by 
making the hunter merely wound the Indian, and afterwards 
come up and dress his wound, after which they shook hands 
and went home together. 

The moral and social effect of the organization of the 
groups, rather than the artistic perfection of the plays, is 
of course the first concern. In illustration of some of the 
effects on individual character, one or two experiences may 
be cited. There was a boy of great imagination, who had 
no difficulty in projecting any number of ideas, but who 
found carrying them out quite another matter. In the 
ordinary class-room work under the teacher his hand was 
always up, whether his answer was very much to the point 
or not. No ignoring or snubbing made any difference. It 
was felt by the teachers that he was given to " showing off." 
When self-organized group work started he was the origi- 
nator of several groups. He left some of them, and was 
put out of others without ceremony. The formula in one 
group was, " Jack, you're fired ; you talk too much and do 
nothing." To this he did not even answer, but turned on 
his heel and went off. At last he could get no one to join 
him in anything that he proposed, nor was he included in 
any other group. After a while he cultivated the friendship 

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SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

of a rather awkward and quiet boy who had just come to 
the school. It turned out that he was impressing him with 
the merits of a grand play that he had in his mind. The 
steadiness of this boy was sufficient to enable them in com- 
bination to get others, and the play was finally started. 

Jack always hated to write. He would say he knew the 
play and didn't need to put it down. "Yes, you do," his 
friend would say ; " because first you tell us one thing and 
then you tell us another." The result was that he did write, 
quite elaborately, first the story of the play and afterwards 
the dramatized version. In the play, between the two parts, 
came a full representation of the parade. The following is 
the story form : 

Part i 

Decoration Day. It was in spring. One day the farmer came out 
of the barn and said to Bub his little boy about eight years old, help 
me with the horse because I am in a hurry for we are going to the 
parade this morning ? The boy said, " All write pa," and he hitched 
the horse to the carriage. " May we take our dog Bruno with us he 
can sit on my lap." " No, we will leave him at home for I heard that 
some thieves got in Mr. Smith's house acrost the rood and we better 
leave him at home to watch the house." After a little bit the mother 
of the boy calls him to come in and get cleaned up ready for the 
parade, the boy goes whistling to the house Bruno beging (beginning) 
to whine " Nice dog, Good doggy " cried Bub. Then all the people 
came out and soon they were spinning down the road. There was a 
shout and down the road came the procession. They went ridding 
around awhile until it was about 8 o'clock, then they started home. 

Part 2 

When they got home they heard the dog barking. Then they saw 
a man with a lantern run past the door. Mr. Blake cried " Thieves ! 
they wont be there very long any how. Bub get my revolver out in 
the barn." There was very much noise and shouting. One thief was 
wounded and the other ascaped. The people were very restless that 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

night. Mr. Blake was more restless than the other people in the 
night. Bub called his mother and said " I think I hear that burglar." 
She said " Your only dreaming go to sleep." 

School will be let out while the people are sleeping. 

There will be a boy with a blanket over him for bruno. Mr. 
Blake is the father of bub. Some one will explain about the house 
and the other things. 

In presenting the play made from this story Jack 
managed it very well. Later the teachers heard an in- 
formal conversation which ran as follows : " Say, Jack's 
play was all right. He's been fired from the group so 
often the boys didn't think he'd have control enough." 

F said : " Yes, you think it was fine ; but he didn't 

have control as much as you think. He'd say, 'Bub, go 
and clean up,' and we didn't know where to go." " Never 
you mind," said G , " it was the best play we had." 

The effect of this experience on Jack was very marked ; 
both the neglect he suffered at first, and his later reestab- 
lishment in the esteem and honor of the class, were most 
salutary. His father spoke of it specially to the teacher, 
and said it had affected his home conduct also. To any 
one who sees that moral conduct is but the subjective side 
of service to society, these results will not appear at all 
strange. The ugly outcome of free action which was not 
responsible to any one whose opinion he deeply cared for, 
had been changed to conduct in which he felt that he was 
responsible to the public opinion of his peers, — a demo- 
cratic situation in which honor feelings flow between those 
on a similar social level. 

As is easily seen, the social force in each little group 
ran out readily to the whole class, and tended to extend 

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SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

itself to the rest of the school and to the home. Although 
there was not always a direct recognition on the part of 
each group that they were working for the whole class, 
this was usually felt. In the plays it was intended from 
the beginning that they were to be offered to the class. 
When the first play was judged by the group running it 
to be as good as they could make it, the question of pre- 
senting it to the class was brought before the teacher. 
She said that she could not give time on the programme 
beyond what she had already given for group work, and 
therefore they would need to ask the rest of the class 
whether they wanted to give up the various things they 
were doing in order to hear the play. The group went 
before the class and told them that the play would take 
but ten minutes, and asked them if they cared to hear it 
enough to give up their own work. This was done, and 
some tiriie was added on to discuss the play and ask 
questions about it. 

The result of other work besides plays was also brought 
before the class. Some of the children who were not in the 
printing group were interested in the subject, and they 
asked the group to come before the class and explain the 
process to them. A number of questions were asked, 
among which the teacher wrote down twenty-seven. 

1. Who printed first, or did people always print? 

2. Who printed the first book ? 

3. How are different presses worked ? 

4. What force is used to make large presses work.? 

5. Show us how you work your little press. 

6. How are printing presses made ? 

7. Why isn't printed stuff sold right away instead of being stored in 

rooms as I've seen it.? 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

8. What different-colored inks do printers use, and what are they 

made of ? 

9. Do you use different-colored inks ? 

10. Did you print Alice's story (written by one of the children) ? 

11. How do Chinese people print? 

12. Can you use the little printing press as well as the big ones in the 

store ? I want to buy one. 

13. What different types are used? 

14. Are they all made of the same stuff? 

15. Why are rubber type, lead type, and steel type all used? 

16. Why can't you print with a pen ? 

17. What is the cost of those pages printed with the little types? 

18. How did they discover the printing press ? 

19. Did the Indians use a press or did they print? 

20. Show us how to set type. 

21. Why do they make so many copies of books? 

22. How is the ink put on the pad ? 

23. How much would a thousand leaflets cost ? 

24. How are newspapers like the Tribune printed ? 

25. Is printing done just the same in other countries ? 

26. What was the cost of the first book printed ? 

27. How are different types made ? 

The post-office group was organized for the use of the 
whole class. The group arranged the room in streets, which 
were the aisles between the seats, and put numbers on every 
side to show the house at which each one lived. They asked 
the teacher to give some time for every one to write letters, 
and they showed the class how to address the letters properly, 
pointing out that those not properly addressed would be put 
in the dead-letter office. At another time they showed the 
class how to write letters and what punctuation marks to 
use, and got permission to have the letters opened at the 
post office to see if they were properly written. The group 
provided the members of the class with envelopes, and later 
on with stamps which they made. Before this was done 

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SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

stamps were drawn on the envelopes by each pupil. There 
were, of course, regular times for collection and delivery. 
One of these letters is given below, and is interesting as 
showing the responsibility that the boy was feeling for the 
group of which he was leader. It runs as follows : 

April 2, 1900. 

Chicago, Illinois. 
Dear Ralph, 

I am so sorry that I cannot come to school. I hope you will read 

about the Battle of Bunker Hill for group work until I come. 

When the post-office group came before the whole class, 
they had prepared themselves for questions by a visit to the 
substation near by, and what they said proved to be so in- 
teresting that there were a great many questions asked or 
statements made by different members of the class. The 
teacher wrote down thirty-two of them. 

At the end of the year we asked the children to write 
out a paper giving a list of the groups they had been in, 
and to say which of these they enjoyed most and which 
they thought the best. Here is a paper from a girl. 

1. Beauty and the Beast. 

2. Reading group. 

3. Sleeping Beauty. 

4. Sewing. 

5. Snow White. 

6. Three Bears. 

The group I enjoyed most being in was the Three Bears group. 
The thing given to the room that I thought was the best was 
Cinderella. 

Here is one from a boy. 

1. I have been in the printing group. 

2. Farmer group. 

3. Firemen group. 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

4. Wild West group, 

5. Battle of San Juan Hill group. 

6. Shepherd watching his Flocks. 

7. Arts group. 

8. Reading group. 

The group I enjoyed most being in was the Firemen group. The 
thing given to the room that was best was the Decoration Day play. 

Some of the pupils were in as many as fifteen different 
groups during the year. Of course these groups did not 
last so long as those referred to in the above paper. There 
was thus a variety of experience, suitable for young children, 
and undue specialism was avoided. The whole class, more- 
over, was interested in everything done by each group. 

During the year the same kind of work was introduced 
into the fourth grade, and here the pupils, during the latter 
part of the year, took possession of the large attic in the 
school and formed a village, with houses and workshops 
in different parts. There was a townhall where the class 
met together as a whole. The different houses were fur- 
nished with wall paper, chairs, flowers, etc. Dishes were 
modeled in clay. One boy set up a battery of his own, 
made to run a bell as a signal to the villagers. Calling was 
conducted formally, calling cards were printed, and a num- 
ber of different activities were instituted. 



[130] 



CHAPTER VII 

SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK {continued) 

During the year 190 1- 1902 similar work was started in 
the Training School of the Colorado State Normal School. 
In the third and fourth grades one of the first groups formed 
consisted of two boys. One of these spoke to the teacher 
and told her that he wished to make a hay stacker. He ex- 
plained how he intended to make it, and said that he had 
another boy to help him. The teacher gave him a piece of 
paper so that he could draw out his plan, which he did. 
The two boys finished the work in about six weeks, having 
at the beginning of this period only one hour a week in 
which to work. During the work there was no hitch or 
uncertainty of procedure. 

The next important plan in the same grade was offered 
by a boy who wished to construct a two-room cottage. 
The plan of this was brought in at the beginning, and 
showed a full comprehension of what was needed. He 
had selected four or five boys to help him. The principal 
difficulty was one of cost. He estimated, on the basis of 
measurement of lumber, nails, etc., and prices obtained at 
his own solicitation from dealers, that the cottage would 
cost ^23. There was some talk of raising this money 
among the pupils, but only a very small amount was forth- 
coming. The idea from the beginning had been that the 
cottage could be used by all the members of the class as 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

a playhouse, or even for some recitations. The group were 
asked to go over the calculations carefully and see if they 
could reduce the proportions of the house so as to make 
it less expensive. They changed it to a small, one-room 
house with a shingled roof, a door, a large window, and 
a small window at the back. The cost of all the material 
was obtained from dealers. About ^lO was found to be 
the very lowest figure. 

At this point the teacher obtained a grant of ^8 from 
the school, to be given to the class on the condition that 
nothing further would be asked for that year. This changed 
the conditions somewhat, and since the whole class was 
concerned, the teacher described this offer to them, giving 
them to understand that the money could be used, if they 
chose, in other ways than the building of a house. Repre- 
sentatives of the building group spoke on the advantages 
of having a house, but some wished to buy a cabinet and 
others wished to have an aquarium with goldfish. The 
teacher even went so far as to suggest that they could buy 
candy. They calculated the amount of candy that would 
come to each at the teacher's suggestion, but the proposal, 
though taken seriously, was not accepted, and indeed never 
gained any adherents. The building group proposed that if 
the house were built, other groups could be formed to make 
various things that would be needed to furnish it. Chairs, 
beds, and tables were necessary. The girls, they thought, 
might make curtains and bed clothing. The house, too, 
ought to be papered and a garden laid out. The small 
window ought to be provided with a stained-glass design 
(done in paper). No decision, however, was reached that 
day. The day following further influence had evidently been 

[1323 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

exercised by the group, for all the class were unanimous in 
wishing to devote the money to the building of the house, 
and to supply what additional money would be needed. 

In carrying this out there were many difficulties to over- 
come, and many mistakes were made. The time estimated 
to complete the house was found to be altogether too short, 
so that the work was stopped during part of the winter ; 

* but the house was finally finished, and stood resplendent in 
its thick coats of green and white paint. Meanwhile chairs, 
a table, and other furnishings had been made, the stained- 
glass window put in, and the garden laid out, to be planted 
and irrigated. It was viewed with pride and affection. The 

I faults in measurement of beams and laying of the shingles 
were pointed out by the pupils, but these defects, which 
were not at all apparent to, an unskilled eye, did not pre- 
vent the satisfaction of every one concerned. 

It is evident that in work of this kind preliminary plan- 
ning is of the greatest importance. It is at this stage that 
the mental resources of the whole group should be com- 

f pletely drawn out. This is the period needing the most 
thorough discussion. The image or impulse, as it exists in 
the mind of one pupil, is not enough. This must be ex- 
pressed clearly so that all the other pupils understand it, 
and so that they can get an opportunity to modify it or to 
object to it entirely. The teacher, too, since he must give 
his consent to the plan, may need to be persuaded. He can 
offer advice or make suggestions which have more effect 
now than at any other time. This, indeed, must be done 
carefully if at all, as there is the danger that the children 
will be attracted to some brilliant proposal which they do 

. not understand sufficiently to carry out. These suggestions 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

may be like the grain which fell by the wayside and grew 
well at first, but withered away because it had not sufficient 
depth of earth. 

If the teacher makes what he thinks are good sugges- 
tions, he should see to it that they are taken as nothing 
more than suggestions, and that the children realize their 
own responsibility. To succeed in this he will need to listen 
carefully, and perhaps expand the objections that may be 
offered to his suggestions ; or he may need to offer seem- 
ingly crushing objections to his own ideas, and let the chil- 
dren defend the original proposals if they are able or care 
to do so. If the teacher fails to do this, he will find that 
he really has the group on his hands, — that his idea is not 
the fertile, reproductive thing springing up in other minds 
that he would like to have it, and that the original leader 
of the group will have been practically displaced and reduced 
to the position of a lieutenant. It is the democratic respon- 
sibility to one's own ideals and to others" on the same social 
level, and not responsibility to the teacher, which this phase 
of work aims to educate. 

The preliminary planning should be pushed as far as 
possible, and made as definite as the mental character of 
the children and the nature of the project in hand will 
permit. In this respect the building of a house, for ex- 
ample, will be quite different from the making of a play. 
The planning is itself often something which requires 
concrete illustration and preliminary work in its produc- 
tion. This was true of the drawings and the estimates 
of the cost of the house described above, and the small 
group of boys worked on these for some days. If the 
plans had never been realized in the actual building of 

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SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

the house, the time spent on their production would itself 
have been quite worth while. 

This would not be simply for the reason that it could be 
regarded under the head of what teachers call ** an educa- 
tive exercise." Types of this latter are to be found plenti- 
fully in all kinds of text-books. Arithmetics, for instance, 
are filled with such exercises. Pupils are asked to work 
out the calculations for papering a room, for mowing a field, 
for catching a hare, and what not, until they lose all sense 
of the reality of these operations. It is supposed that 
"drill," consisting of repeating these disjecta membra of 
real arithmetic, will produce facility. Meanwhile the in- 
sight required in applying processes is usually left out of 
consideration, and the child is not trained to ask the ques- 
tion or frame the problem which is essential to understand- 
ing. One real problem, where calculation is applied to get 
at results that are desired by the pupils, is worth hundreds 
of this false, wasteful, and artificial kind. We have already 
seen this in the averaging of the cooking group, and the 
preparation of plans and estimates by the boys of the house 
group is another similar case. This planning, even if the 
building of the house had been given up, was not a mere 
exercise. It was undertaken to find out whether the house 
could be built or not, and if it had turned out that this 
would have been impossible, the calculations would still 
have served a useful purpose from the point of view of the 
children themselves. On no other conditions could they 
be regarded as yielding any satisfactory social service. 

The main point in the preliminary planning is to decide 
whether the project shall go on or not. It is well to realize 
that not every plan or impulse in life needs to be executed, 

[135] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

and in self-organized group work the children have before 
them the choice of aims, as well as the selection of means. 
Before their aims have been thoroughly fixed is the best 
time for attempts to divert them from their purpose. To 
give up a plan at the beginning may be wise, later on it 
may be a desertion. It is also a favorable time for delibera- 
tion and inhibition. It is a time for enthusiasm, but it is 
well to delay somewhat, so as to be sure that the enthu- 
siasm is well grounded and has sufficient carrying power. 
With older pupils it would be well to inquire as to the pos- 
sibilities of members wishing to leave the group later on, 
or being forced to do so by external circumstances. Some 
protection surely ought to be given to the rights of contract, 
and this is a function which would naturally be exercised 
by the state or governmental power of the teacher. The 
possibility of failure at every stage ought to be taken into 
account as far as possible. 

In doing this, however, it is the experience of the chil- 
dren and not of the teacher which is the main consideration. 
It is to be expected that some plans will fail and groups 
disband long before they have finished what they intended 
to do. And this may be at unexpected points, or in face 
of difficulties that have been previously thought of. There 
must be an element of risk if the work is to be really or- 
ganized by the children. " The best laid plans o' mice and 
men gang aft a' gley." 

In the beginning of the year a higher percentage of fail- 
ures is to be expected, and the teacher may wisely enough 
approve for trial more doubtful schemes at this time than 
later on. After some experience of this kind has been at- 
tained both teacher and children will have actual cases to 

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SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

point to, where it will be found that not only the plans 
themselves, but the character and disposition of the indi- 
viduals back of them, as in Jack's case, are exceedingly- 
important. There ought to be opportunity for groups to 
disband as well as for individuals to leave groups. Usually 
this latter can be arranged without serious disadvantage to 
the group. An individual who gets among his comrades 
the reputation of being flighty, brings upon himself the 
natural consequences, as did Jack. In the preliminary plan- 
ning the teacher, in case he suspects the capacity of any 
one, should raise the question and see that the other mem- 
bers of the group appreciate the . responsibility they are 
taking in having him for a member. This stimulates 
loyalty to one another and promotes honor feelings among 
the group. 

Where the group bond is weak, individuals are disposed 
to be vacillating. In proportion as a feeling of union with 
or service to some one else comes in, responsibility in- 
creases. Even when plans were brought forward by single 
individuals, they usually concealed or took on later some 
social significance. I may illustrate this by a single case, 
in which there was also a large element of failure. A fifth- 
grade boy, rather belated in his development, wished to go 
with a number of others who were modeling in clay. He 
was not, however, connected with them in any organized 
plan. His idea of what he wanted to do was proportionately 
indefinite, and at first he looked forward to but half an 
hour. He seemed to care very little about what he was 
going to model, but mentioned a definite object, perhaps 
more to get an opportunity of handling the clay than for 
any other reason. 

[137] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

As he was working, I came up to him and asked him if 
I could help him in any way. The fact that he had no 
particular problem in mind led to a vague answer. Now it 
is plain, as already indicated, that if a plan has not sufficient 
life in it to stand a struggle for existence with other plans 
that may come easily to mind, it is not sufficiently intense 
to be worth while. A resolution that cannot resist a certain 
amount of temptation is not very well adapted for a hardy 
life, nor is it likely to be well carried out. It is better that 
such weaknesses be discovered at an early stage, if possible. 
I accordingly set myself to see if, by using a moderate 
stimulus, I could tempt the boy to desert his plan. 

I think a cup or a vase was the object he was modeling. 
I said to him : " What's the good of making a cup ? You 
have plenty of them at home, haven't you.? " I said this, 
of course, somewhat tentatively, so as not to suggest the 
slightest feeling of authority on my part. The boy at this 
stage was, I felt, too weak to resist a powerful stimulus. 
He went on modeling without giving much of an answer. 

I then said : " Why don't you make a rest for a pen or 
something like that ? You could make it just long enough 
to hold pens so that the ink wouldn't fall on the desk when 
you laid them down. You could put in a little cup for ink, 
too, and make it like a fern leaf, with the stem winding 
round the little cup. Or you might, perhaps, make a frog 
looking into the little pool of ink"; and so on, giving a 
number of scattered suggestions. One of these appealed to 
his imagination, and he said : " Yes, that would be better " ; 
and he started to sketch in clay the new idea. (I may 
say here that we had a kiln in the school, and that these 
utensils could be fired, then painted, re-fired, and actually 

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SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

used.) The next day he was working quite vigorously at 
his penholder. 

The teacher of the room, hearing the story of the boy's 
change of plan, said : " That boy is so shilly-shally that if 
I should go and ask him to change to something else, I 
believe he would do it." I replied : "It would be good to 
try. If he is to develop the power to resist temptation at 
all, he must get just such experiences." She provided her- 
self with a little china pinholder and showed it to him, thus 
presenting him with a sense perception as against his own 
image. She pointed out the advantages of the pinholder as 
well as she could, including the ease of its manufacture. 
The boy was again pleased with the new idea, but was 
evidently somewhat disturbed. He finally said : " Well, I 
would make the pinholder if I hadn't said that I was 
going to make the penholder." "Oh, the superintendent 
won't care," said the teacher. " No, I suppose he won't, 
but I kind of thought I would make it and give it to him 
so that he could use it on his desk. " And he went on with 
the work he had in hand. 

It is evident here that what enabled the boy to resist the 
second temptation was the social motive, in which he had 
chosen me as a member of his group. Unfortunately for 
me, the penholder was never finished. A checkerboard 
which he had started in the sloyd room weighed on his 
mind, and the next day he proposed that he should use the 
time which had been given for modeling to finish the 
checkerboard. He said that the holidays were near by, 
and that if he did not get some extra tim^e the checker- 
board would never be finished. The teacher permitted him 
to make the change. 

[139] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

I saw him the next day and said jokingly to him : " You're 
a nice kind of fellow, changing around all the time ! Is 
that the sort of man you're going to be when you grow 
up ? I dare say you would change again for very little. 
Suppose I should give you ten cents, would you go on with 
the penholder?" "No," he said, "I wouldn't." "How 
much, then, would you take ? " " I wouldn't do it for less 
than the price of a pair of boots." As the little fellow 
came of a poor family and was sadly in need of a pair of 
boots, I could readily appreciate the measure of his present 
resolution. Further temptation was not offered, and the 
checkerboard was finished in time. 

A course in temptation may be a new thing for the 
public school, but it is a necessary part of the process of 
finding one's self. After all, in the most spiritual sense of 
the words, every one has his price. The tragedy of it is, 
as George Eliot says, that many sell their souls and fail 
to get the price they really want. 

When self-organized group work has been tried in the 
higher grades, it is found that the social consciousness of 
the children, since it is considerably more advanced, leads 
often to an organization of the class as a whole as a leading 
feature of the work. There is less naivete among older 
children, and for this reason, when the idea is first broached, 
they may look upon it somewhat askance. The school 
habit has obtained a hold upon them, and many of them 
have lost a good deal of their natural spontaneity and re- 
sourcefulness. The idea of getting up lessons for the 
teachers has been accepted, and in many cases the yoke 
may have come to fit with a fair degree of comfort, espe- 
cially when a good deal of time is left over for pursuits in 

[140] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

which they are more keenly interested from a personal 
standpoint. 

To pupils breathing this atmosphere the idea of putting 
themselves into school work which they cut out for them- 
selves seems a little too arduous. Why should they, when 
they have taken passage in a ship which ought to arrive at 
graduation in its own good time } It is only necessary to 
guard against falling overboard. Besides, is it not the 
teachers' business to make things interesting ? Why should 
pupils try to interest themselves or others ? 

These tendencies are, however, only superficial, and if 
all the virile individuals have not already left a school 
which they feel does not appeal to their true ambitions, 
pupils of the higher grades often go into such work with 
the greatest enthusiasm. Some examples of this may be 
cited from an eighth-grade class in the Colorado Normal 
School, where a group of considerable size was started for 
the study of German. The pupils heard that one of the 
Normal students was a German, and they got her consent 
to act as a teacher. Following her traditions she started 
them off on exercises from a text-book. The pupils put 
up with this for three or four days, but at the end of this 
time they proposed they should do something more natural 
and interesting. "Talk to us," they said, "in German. 
Tell us the names of some of the things in the school- 
room, and perform some simple actions, using the words 
that accompany them, and ask more questions." From 
this as a starting point the group made considerable 
progress in spoken German. 

After some experiences in small groups, the class practi- 
cally turned the history period into self-organized work. 

[141] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

The subject for the year in this grade was American his- 
tory, and the pupils proposed, toward the beginning of the 
year, that, instead of studying about the historical events 
in the usual way, they organize themselves into the Ameri- 
can Congress and act out the debates and decisions of this 
body from the beginning to the present time. It will be 
noticed that the class accepted the general aim, namely the 
study of American history, but proposed within this general 
aim to outline their own course of study. The teacher 
agreed to this, and promised to give them a written exam- 
ination on the work they actually did. A boy was chosen 
to act as George Washington, the first President, and mem- 
bers of Congress for the different states were elected by 
the class. The Senate and the House of Representatives 
occupied different ends of the schoolroom, separated by 
screens. A government printer was selected, who printed 
copies of the bills that were brought into Congress. The 
class prepared themselves at home for the debates on their 
bills, but at times when this was difficult they adjourned, 
sent to the library for books, and in little knots, assisted 
by the teacher, got up the information that they needed. 
The form of the bills was obtained from an actual bill of the 
Colorado legislature. The total number of bills could not, 
of course, be introduced, but the selection made was repre- 
sentative of the important affairs agitating the country at 
the time. I have in my possession about forty of these 
bills, from which I have selected eight. It will be noticed 
that these bills show errors in typography, spelling, and con- 
struction. Different printers of course had different stand- 
ards and capacities. Faults were pointed out by teachers 
and pupils, but even at the end some still remained. 

[ 142] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

H. B. No. I 

A BILL FOR 

An act to appropriate ^25,000,000 for the President's use, to buy 
arms and ammunition, and to pay men to suppress the rebelHon 
which has been declared to exist in the northern states. 
I. Be it enacted by the Senate and H. of R. in Congress assembled, 

that we appropriate $25,000,000 for the above purpose. 

Homer Randall. Sen. from Georgia. 

S. B. No. I 
A BILL FOR 

An act to provide for the Compromise of 1850. 

1. Be it enacted by the Senate and H. of R. in Congress assembled 
that California be admitted as a free state. 

2. That slave trade — that is, buying and selling of slaves — be 
abolished forever in the District of Columbia. 

3. That there should be a new and very stringent fugitive slave 
law. 

4. Th^t Mexico and Utah should be made territory without refer- 
ence to slavery — that is, the people should make them free or slave. 

5. That since Texas claimed so much of New Mexico as was 
east of the Rio Grande, she should give up her claim and be paid 
money for doing so. 

John Gibbons. Rep. from Maine. 

H. B. No. 3 

A BILL FOR 

An act to provide for the punishment of land misrepresentors. 

1. Be it enacted by the Senate and H. of R. in Congress assembled 
that a fine of ($10,000) be laid on persons who misrepresent land. 

2. That a term in prison not to exceed ten years be dealt out 
to them. 

Laura Waters. Rep. from Penn. 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

H. B. No. 3 

A BILL FOR 

An act to provide for the building of a harbor at New Orleans. 
Sec. I. Be it enacted by the Senate and H. of R. that we appro- 
priate ^2000 for the building of a harbor at New Orleans. 

Mabel Collins. Representative from Maryland. 

H. B. No. I 
A BILL FOR 

An act to provide for the purchase of Louisiana territory. 

1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
the U. S. that we give the President power to purchase the Louisiana 
territory. 

2. That we pay fifteen million dollars ($15,000,000) for it. 

3. That we hereby appropriate that sum for this purpose. 

Mattie Miller. Sen. from N.C. 

S. B. No. 2 

A BILL FOR 

An act to provide for the fortification of the coast. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives that 
guns be erected along the eastern coast of the United States. 

1. That 12 guns be placed at New York City, and that 12 mines 
be laid in the harbor of New York. 

2. That guns be erected and mines be laid at Charleston, S.C. 

3. That we request the Sec. of War to place troops at Portland, 
Maine. 

S. B. No. I 
A BILL FOR 

An act to provide for the building of ships of war. 

1. Be it enacted by the Senate and H. of R. that we direct the 
Sec. of Navy to build 12 ships, arm and equip them as soon as 
possible. 

2. And that we hereby appropriate $5,000,000 for this purpose, 

[144] • 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

H. B. No. I 
A BILL FOR 

An act for payment of debts, with interest in full, made by the 
Congress of the Confederation. 
Be it enacted by the Congress of the United states that we 
assume the responsibility of paying all the debts made by the Con- 
gress of the Confederation ; also interest on that debt to be paid in 
good sound money. 

When the class came to the Dred Scott case, they had 
not thought of the Supreme Court, but when its need was 
apparent it was forthwith created, the prisoner was brought 
in, and the case was argued on each side by lawyers, both 
of whom made excellent speeches, and the historic decision 
was finally reached. 

When the Civil War arose generals were chosen, who, 
with the assistance of other members of the class, laid out 
the middle and southern portion of the United States in 
the school yard. This was done on a large scale, occupy- 
ing about one hundred feet each way. Hills of earth were 
thrown up to represent the Appalachian Mountains, and 
proper indentations marked the rivers and the seacoast. 
The generals and their officers then described different 
periods of the war, the rest of the class looking on and 
asking questions. No acting out of the war was attempted, 
imaged representations with the aid of the relief map, over 
which the pupils walked, being all that was desired. 

I hardly need to say that the class got a thoroughly good 
grip of American history. A great deal of special work was 
done. Libraries throughout the town were ransacked for 
all kinds of information not to be found in the usual text- 
books of history. Books and newspapers printed during 

[145] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

the period that the class was reenacting were particularly 
sought after. The discussions naturally were not confined 
to school hours, but ran out into the playground and the 
home. Those who were most interested did much more 
work than they would have accomphshed under the usual 
course of study, and this probably applied to at least three 
quarters of the class. Those who were not so eager or so 
competent were, to some extent, kept up by the enthusiasm 
of the rest ; and even the worst did as well as they could 
have been expected to do under any circumstances. 

As the last instance shows, self-organized work may be 
dominated by the class as a whole, which maintains con- 
trol over individual or subordinate groups that may be 
formed. This, as already stated, is usually characteristic of 
the higher grades, but it sometimes appears lower down. 
As an instance of this, the experience of a teacher of the 
fourth grade in the Everett School, Boston, may be cited. 
This was a case where only one group was openly formed 
in school, but the class as a whole took charge of the group 
and modified it to suit themselves. This was possible largely 
because the work selected was the making of a play. Here 
follows the teacher's description : 

The play of " Old Pipes and the Dryad " was given by a class 
of girls in the fourth grade. Stockton's "Fanciful Tales" had been 
read during the regular reading hours. One tale, " Old Pipes and 
the Dryad," was enjoyed very much. It was suggested by the 
teacher that the story might be dramatized and given by the class. 
Two or three different groups of friends considered the possibility, 
and finally one girl — Teddy — who was very anxious to be the 
Dryad, really did dramatize the story and assigned the parts to girls 
whom, as she said, read well and would learn quickly. They worked 
together and consulted the teacher when in difficulty ; for instance, 

[146] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

they did not see how to put descriptive paragraphs into conversa- 
tion. The process was illustrated and they did the rest alone. 
However, the writing of the play was comparatively easy because 
the text was followed minutely where possible. At first the play was 
all in one act. 

Rehearsals began before the parts were learned. " It is easier to 
remember when you are doing the things," as one of the girls 
expressed it. They used their own diction at first, simply keeping 
the general sentiment of Stockton. But gradually, little by little, 
the text expression was introduced, because it was admired by them, 
as being more expressive than their own words. Hence there was no 
formal declamatory air in the reading of their parts. All was simple 
and childlike, for the words seeined to be their own. Most of the 
rehearsals took place before the class, who proved to be hard yet 
helpful critics. Each and all of the fifty girls felt at liberty to 
speak at any time, if by so doing the play could be improved. The 
production of that play satisfactorily was the aim not only of the 
players but of the entire class. 

Quite late in its growth the play was divided into four acts. 
The change came about in the following way. The girls said, "It is 
very queer to have just one act, as if the play took only one day. 
In the story, first it is springtime and then it is fall. We must tell 
the people that time has passed on, or else it will seem foolish." 

" Yes, and in theaters where things take place at different times and 
at different places, there are acts. Then the time passes in between." 

So, to be logical, the play was divided into acts. The players 
gave their play, and were stopped by the class whenever a natural 
ending came. 

One girl was dismissed from the play. She took the part of one 
of the children in the play, and " wiggled too much, and exaggerated 
her 'sh ! ' too much." Consequently the class objected, and a contest 
was held to see who would have the part. Another contest took 
place which was interesting. The Dryad was sick, and word came 
from her mother that there was a possibility of her not returning to 
school. This caused much disappointment, but the play had to be 
given, so a contest was proposed to see who should take the Dryad's 
part. One night's preparation was allowed at the suggestion of, one 
girl, and following are some remarks that were made at the contest. 
About twenty took part. 

[147] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

"Voice too high!" 

" Voice too deep ! Not like a fairy's ! " 

" Acts too stiff ! " 

" No one can do it as well as Teddy ! She knows how to use her 
eyes ! " 

Naturally Teddy's reappearance at school was hailed with delight. 

The class costumed the players, each one thinking it an honor if 
her donation was accepted. A hat came from one, a cane from 
another ; a bunch of flowers here, and a crown there. The staging 
was very simple, on account of lack of room. A clothes closet was 
the tree ; a screen, the house ; the desks, the trees ; and ordinary 
chairs the benches and stones. 

One girl persisted in saying, " I will bring the money," when 
she should have said " take." The teacher objected, but with 
no effect. One day, however, a stranger who saw the play said : 
"Why do you say bring? I didn't like that one part." After she 
left, the class asked why bring v^z-s wrong. A lesson — not formal 
of course — was then and there given, after which take was always 
emphasized. 

The play was given fourteen times to audiences of about fifty at 
a time, and once at another school before two hundred and fifty 
grown-up people. The girls were never self-conscious and spoke 
with exceptional clearness and distinctness. 

During the rehearsals there was really no "discipline " necessary. 
Each girl felt free to get up and express her ideas, and each one 
seemed happy. 

Once " Old Pipes " was absent, and a class had been invited to see 
the play. But a substitute came forward, said that she knew the 
part, and really did do it quite as well as Old Pipes himself. The 
play was given by some of the other girls at their homes and 
elsewhere. 

The original story was reread once, and even the poorest reader 
in the room read remarkably well. 

Reading, writing, composition, language, and spelling were taught 
indirectly and directly by the play, and the feeling of good fellow- 
ship that resulted was worth hours of " moral training." 

The first act of the play will show the character of the 
children's work. 

[148] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

OLD PIPES AND THE DRYAD 

Act. I 
Persons acting : Place of action : 

Old Pipes I. Deep forest 

Old Pipes' Mother 2. In front of Old 

Three children Pipes' cottage 

O. P. (sitting on a stone). Children, I am very tired to-night 
and I don't believe I can climb up this steep path to my 
home. I shall have to ask you to help me. 

Chil. We will do that gladly ! Come ! (Two children take him 
by the arms, the other pushes him up behind.) 

O. P. (sitting down on bench in front of cottage). I am sorry 
that I tired you so much! 

1st child. Oh, that would not have tired us if we had not been so 
far to-day after the cows, the sheep, and the goats. We 
thought we should never find them. (Other children mo- 
tion to child not to tell.) 

O. P. Had to go after the cows, the sheep, and the goats ! 
Why, what do you mean by that? 

2nd child. Why, you see, good sir, that as the cattle can't hear your 
pipes now, some one has to go after them, and the Chief 
Villager has hired us three to do it. 

O. P. How long have you been doing this ? 

ist child. About a year now. But we are rested now and must go 
home. Good night, sir. 

Oth. chil. Good night. (Go downhill, 3rd ch. shaking others.) 

3rd child. Why did you tell the poor old man ? 

O. P. (shouting). Mother! Mother ! did you hear what those 
children said ? 

Mother (coming out of cottage). Children! I didn't know there 
were any children here. 

[149] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

O. P. Yes, three children helped me up the hill, and they told 
me that for a whole year the cattle have not heard my 
pipes and that they had to go after them. 

Mother. They can't hear you ? Why, what's the matter with the 
cattle ? 

O. P. Ah, me! I don't believe there's anything the matter with 
the cattle. It must be with me and my pipes that there is 
something the matter. But one thing is certain : if I 
don't earn the wages the Chief Villager pays me, I shall 
not take them. I shall go straight down to the village 
and give back the money I received to-day. 

Mother. Nonsense ! I'm sure you've piped as well as you could 
and no more can be expected. And what are we to do 
without the money ? 

O. P. I don't know, but I am going down to the village to pay 
it back. Good-by mother ! 

Mother (gazing at him until he disappears). Well, if you will go, 
good-by. (Rises and goes into the cottage.) 

The control of the whole class over everything that is 
done is one of the characteristics of the self-organized work 
carried on in the classes of Miss Lotta Clark, of the Charles- 
town High School. Says Miss Clark : " I talked the matter 
over with my classes and asked them how they would like to 
try the experiment of conducting their history lessons them- 
selves. The novelty of the idea pleased them, and after 
considerable informal discussion we decided to carry on our 
recitations in the form of business meetings. A chairman 
was appointed from the class to take charge of the meeting, 
and there was something of a sensation when I exchanged 
chairs with him. He appointed committees to nominate can- 
didates for a president, vice president, and secretary. These 
officers were elected by ballot for one month, and their 
duties were decided upon by the class. We had an amusing 

[•50] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

time when they tried to decide what they ought to do with 
me. I told them I was going to do just as Uttle as pos- 
sible in the class, so that they could have all the time and 
opportunity there was. They finally decided to call me the 
"executive officer," with power to exercise full authority 
if necessity required. 

"The business form of the meeting did not occupy a 
great deal of time. As a matter of fact, we had time to 
spare. The time which had previously been taken up by 
the teacher's questions was saved, and the pupils could 
easily recite in half an hour what it had taken them an 
hour to prepare. . . . The roll call and the report of the 
previous day were sometimes finished in five minutes, the 
lesson of the day in thirty more, and we found ourselves 
with ten minutes to spare. There were various suggestions 
as to what we should do with the extra time. One was, that 
they take longer lessons, and this being adopted, the habit 
grew of letting them assign their own lessons. The result 
was that they almost always took longer ones than I had 
been in the habit of giving them. 

" Another suggestion was that the scholars should collect 
pictures and show them to the class during spare minutes. 
One boy said he didn't have much luck in finding pictures, 
but would like to read things in other books and tell them 
to the class. A girl asked if she might draw some pictures 
from a book in the library, and still another boy asked me 
to get permission for him to go to the Art Museum with 
his camera and take photographs of the casts there, that 
were connected with the work. We did all these things 
and many, many more ; and these suggestions led to the 
richest development of all in the work of this year. The 

[151] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

classes formed themselves into little informal clubs, met at 
recess and after school, and decided what each would do 
to contribute something interesting to the lessons. There 
were the drawing clubs and the camera clubs, while the 
club that brought in pictures and newspaper clippings, and 
told interesting accounts which they had read, called them- 
selves the Sidelights Club. 

"Among these groups the most important and success- 
ful was the Library Club of last year. It consisted of twelve 
pupils most of the time (sometimes more). Their object 
was to go to the library once a week and read there, among 
the old and rare volumes and newspapers, interesting things 
about the early history of their home — Charlestown. As 
some of these volumes were of great value and the news- 
papers were very old, it was necessary to get permission 
to use them from the head librarian of the main library in 
Boston. During the interview which took place when the 
teacher went to get permission for the pupils to use these 
things, one of the head officials said after he had heard a 
description of what was wanted : ' You may have anything 
you wish either at the branch or at the main library, but 
we tell you frankly that we do not expect that you will 
accomplish anything. It is not our experience that school 
children care anything for that sort of thing.' Their only 
stipulation was that the teacher should be present when 
the pupils went to the library, to be sure that the books 
and papers were handled with the greatest care. The girls 
selected Thursday afternoon, and the librarian at the branch 
provided a special table for their use, and put all the books 
we had asked for in a convenient place by themselves. 
The girls were very careful that the teacher should be 

[152] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

punctual and regular in attendance, though at times it 
was very hard for her to do so. 

" Many interesting things were learned and reported to 
the class and used as material for the school publication. 
But toward the end of the winter they made a discovery 
which was the most interesting of all. In reading a book 
by Mr. Eades on old Charlestown, they discovered that 
John Harvard was a citizen of Charlestown. Like many 
other people, they had always associated Harvard with 
Cambridge, and were amazed to find that the Harvard 
grant and the site of the home were only a stone's throw 
from the place where they were studying. They dropped 
their books and started out to find it, and after some 
searching and calculation they found the place which is 
now occuoied by a brick apartment house. Surprise was 
expressed that the place had never been marked, and the 
half -laughing suggestion was made that 'we mark it.' The 
occurrence was reported in the history class, and the whole 
class took the matter up and discussed different phases of 
it at different times. One of the boys offered to find out 
how much a suitable tablet would cost, and after discussing 
materials and marking, the class decided that they wanted 
a granite tablet 3x2 feet with the following inscription : 



SITE OF THE HOME OF 

JOHN HARVARD 

1637 

MARKED BY THE HISTORY CLUB 

OF THE 

CHARLESTOWN HIGH SCHOOL 

1907 



[153] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

" The boy wrote to a number of firms, stated what was 
desired, got the prices, and reported to the class that the 
best price he could get was ^40. Another boy said he 
thought he could do better, and he got figures and finally 
asked the teacher and the first boy to go with him to a firm 
in Boston where a former pupil of the school was employed. 
This gentleman found that he could make us the tablet at 
the price of ^33.40. 

" Then came the question of how to get the money. The 
first suggestion was to give an entertainment, but the pupils 
were confronted by some unusual difficulties. They were 
occupying a temporary building while their new school was 
being built, and there was no hall they could use. There 
were only two months left before school closed, and at one 
time it looked rather hopeless. The parents of most of the 
children were poor, and graduation time was approaching, 
which necessitates much expense, and for this and other rea- 
sons class contribution was not favored. The pupils wanted to 
earn the money, but there didn't seem to be any way to do 
it in the time they had before their graduation. The teacher 
suggested that they allow the next year's class to take up the 
work where they had left it. This plan was rejected, as was 
also the one to have the whole school take up the work. 
They said frankly that they had begun the work and they 
wanted the satisfaction of finishing it if they 'only could.' 

" At just this point the teacher was invited to an evening 
gathering, and in the course of the conversation was asked 
to describe the work of this class. The listeners were all 
educators and their sympathy was aroused by this partic- 
ular piece of work, and an offer was made to collect the 
money there in that company. The very kind offer was 

[154] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

refused by the teacher for this reason : it would have taken 
the matter out of the hands of the pupils, and they would 
have missed the benefit of actually doing the thing them- 
selves, or the disappointment if they failed to do it. This 
caused a good deal of discussion. One lady gave the argu- 
ment that in the business world when a man has a good 
idea he very often gets others to furnish the money to carry 
it out. A gentleman remarked that it would be a crime 
in his opinion to allow the thing to fail. The outcome of 
the matter was as follows : suggestions were made as to 
the ways in which the pupils could earn the money, and the 
teacher was authorized to convey to the class the encour- 
aging assurance that they were to go on and earn as much 
as they could, and if they could not earn it all before they 
were separated by graduation, the remaining sum would 
be contributed. 

" One of the ways suggested by the company for the 
pupils to earn money was by lettering diplomas, and three 
girls earned about six dollars by this means. One of the 
other girls earned two dollars by sewing, and some of the 
boys sold papers for their money. One girl's father sug- 
gested that a gentleman who had been a graduate of the 
school be told of the matter, as he is interested in history. 
Through him the mayor of Boston was interested and sent a 
check. Every pupil worked and did what he could, whether 
it was much or little, and the tablet was procured and un- 
veiled on their graduation day. 

" That they were doing something ^ real * was the greatest 
inspiration to the boys and girls, and they got much practi- 
cal experience from it. They learned why treasurers should 
give bonds, although one girl said that she considered it an 

[155] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

insult to the treasurer, and stated quite forcibly, to the 
amusement of the others, that she wouldn't be a treasurer 
if the rest had so little confidence in her. The seriousness 
of the position came home to the class, however, when the 
treasurer lost her purse which contained 6ne of the checks 
belonging to the fund. She had not indorsed it and was 
greatly pleased that she had not. When the advice of the 
class was solicited, the matter of stopping the payment of 
checks was considered, explained, and acted upon. 

"The cooperation of the owner of the building on the 
site of John Harvard's home was solicited by the pupils and 
obtained. He imbedded the tablet in the wall for them. 
During Old Home Week a laurel wreath was hung over 
the tablet, and the boys and girls were glad to have done 
* something real,' as one of them expressed it." 

With pupils of a college grade self-organized work ought 
to be just as feasible as in lower grades. This is shown by 
the work done in the classes of several of the teachers of 
the Boston Normal School, who have experimented success- 
fully in this direction. The following reports of two of these 
self-organized groups in the classes of Miss Dora Williams 
will indicate the spirit and the quality of the work. Other 
groups in this class during the same time dealt with 
Aquariums, Artificial Incubation, Hens and Eggs, Cocoons, 
Migration of Birds, Trees, the Struggle for Existence, and 
Adaptation to Surroundings. Self -organized work of this 
kind must be distinguished from the ordinary college elec- 
tions, in which the pupils are not called upon to organize 
the subject. It differs also from the most of seminar work, 
where the choice of subjects and effect upon the class is 
left mainly to the teacher. 

[156] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

GROUP WORK IN SCIENCE 
Sea Life 

Having discussed the value of self-organized group work in the 
psychology class last year, it was thought it would be decidedly ben- 
eficial should the students of the Normal School be given an oppor- 
tunity to try it for themselves. Consequently last fall this opportunity 
was offered in the science class. 

One period of home preparation was allowed, in which the students 
might think up special topics upon which the groups might work with 
benefit to both themselves and the class. At the next recitation each 
student offered her suggestions, and a list of these was made and 
their values discussed. Then each pupil looked over the list and 
chose the topic in which she was most interested and which she 
thought it would do her the most good to work upon. In this way 
the groups were entirely self-chosen, for each pupil was free to enter 
what group she wished, and even the topics were not assigned by 
the teacher. 

As was natural, the topics covered a wide range, for such a large 
number of students could not help having widely differing interests. 
This, however, was desirable, for when the groups reported to the 
class the knowledge of the class was so much the more extensive. 

As was also natural, the groups varied greatly in size, for some 
of the topics appealed to many of the girls while others seemed to 
interest only a few. Thus there were six in the group studying birds 
and only two in the group studying sea life, of which I was a member. 

Our reasons for choosing this particular subject were twofold. The 
first was that we had spent a part of last summer at the Marine Biolog- 
ical Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and had there become 
much interested in sea life. We had also collected some very good speci- 
mens. The second reason was that we thought that the recognition of 
the ascending development of the organs of defense and offense would 
be of use to the whole class, especially if we could actually show speci- 
mens illustrating this ascent in type animals of principal phyla. 

A description of the technical work done will be given later, but 
just here I want to tell of what we got out of the group work aside 
from subject-matter. 

At the present time great stress is being put upon the fact that 
we must keep the children interested and self-active to do them the 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

most good in our work with them. We certainly were interested in 
our work or else we should not have chosen the subject or formed 
our group. We were decidedly self-active and independent, owing 
to two facts : first, we wanted to have something of value, well ar- 
ranged, to present to the class ; second, we needed to do the work 
ourselves in order to accomplish this. 

We are taught nowadays that the powers of cooperation and 
organization must be trained to enable one to fill properly any station 
in life. In this group work we had to cooperate, for had we not 
met together and talked over what each should do that would best 
further the end we had in view, we should never have reached that 
end at all, and there would have been no unity in our work. We had 
to organize our subject-matter and material, making a clear plan as 
to how we should present the former and show ,the latter, else, again, 
our work would, when brought before the class, have lacked unity 
and would not have been logical. 

A certain amount of self-control was necessary to prevent one 
member of the group from'acting selfishly or trying to dictate to the 
other. Perseverance was needed in several instances where we had 
difficulties in carrying out the plans we had made. It seems to me 
that these last two qualities of the will are especially desirable, and 
that if we can train them by such a delightful method as group work, 
we should not hesitate. 

I think that enough has been said to show how valuable a device 
group work is in training important mental powers, so now I will give 
a brief account of the work done. 

We first made out an analysis of the ground we wished to cover, 
and had it accepted by the class. The special line of thought which 
we wished to follow was the development of the organs by which 
the different animals are able to sustain life and keep their race sur- 
viving. We did this by showing specimens of type animals of six 
phyla, starting with coelenterata and including vertebrates which 
showed clearly these points. These specimens were some that we 
had collected that summer and preserved with reference to some 
such need as this. 

We arranged these specimens around on the tables in the class room 
before recitation in such a way that each three girls would have one 
specimen. In a couple of cases we had only two specimens, so that 
we had to have these passed around the class as they were discussed. 

[158] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

In order that both of us should have the opportunity of working 
with the class, we divided the work into two parts, one of us taking 
the introductory talk and the first three phyla, and the other taking 
the other three phyla and the ground covered. 

Our idea was to draw the facts from the pupils after they had 
examined the specimens, instead of telling them everything. We got 
almost all the points we wanted, with only suggestions from us as to 
what line their observations were to follow, and in this way they 
were much more interested and active than if we had simply stated 
a number of facts to them. 

As the different facts were mentioned, they were written on the 
board in the form of the following topical analysis, which the pupils 
were allowed to copy for future reference if they wished. 

Sea Life 
L Coelenterata. 
Sea anemone. 

1. Organs of offense and defense. 

a. Tentacles — lasso cells. 

b. Stinging capsules contained in octoderm. 

c. Elongated cells containing slender barbs. 

2. Sense of sight. 

a. Isolated nerve cells at base of tentacles. 

b. Round refractory cells. 

3. Sense of hearing lacking. 
II. Echinodermata. 

1. Starfish. 

a. Organs of offense and defense, 
(i) Ambulacral feet or suckers. 

(2) Rows of calcareous movable spines. Pedicellariae. 

(3) Tentacles containing olfactory cells. 

b. Sense of sight. Small eye (red spot) at end of am- 

bulacral groove. 

2. Sea urchin. 

a. Organs of offense and defense, 
(i) Movable spines. Pedicellariae. 
(2) Tube feet. 

b. Sense of sight. Ocular plates bearing eye plates. 

c. Sense of hearing lacking. 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

III. Vermes. 

Nereis virens (sandworm), 

1. Organs of offense and defense. 

a. Two horny jaws. 

b. Locomotive organs. 

2. Sense of sight. Eyes in a head. 

3. Sense of hearing lacking. 
IV. Mollusca. 

Squid. 

1. Organs of offense and defense, 

a. Ten arms provided with suckers. Two longer than 

others, 

b. Mouth with two horny jaws. 
Tongue adapted to rasping, 

c. Tail and mantle fins used for locomotion. 

d. Change of color when excited. 

e. Ink sac. 
f. Siphon. 

2. Sense of sight. Pair of large movable eyes on head. 
- 3. Sense of hearing lacking, 

V. Arthropoda, 

1. Crayfish, 

a. Organs of offense and defense, 

(i) Two antennae (organs of hearing and balance), 

(2) Four antennules (organs of smell). 

(3) Appendages, 

{a) Thoracic legs. 

Three pairs maxillipeds. 

One pair chelipeds. 

Four pairs walking legs. 
{p) Abdominal. 

Six pairs swimmerets. 

One telson or tail fin, 

b. Sense of sight. Large eyes on a rostrum on stalks 

movable in all directions, 

2. Hermit crab, 

a. Organs of offense and defense. 
(i) Stolen shell, 
(2) One pair antennae, — organs of smell. 

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SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

(3) Two pairs antennae, — used for balance. 

(4) One pair claws. 

b. Sense of sight. Pair of eyes on stalks. 
VI. Vertebrata. 
Dogfish. 

1. Organs of offense and defense. 

a. Mouth bristles with several rows of double-edged 

teeth. 

b. Powerful tail. Rapid swimmer. 

2. Sense of sight. Eye constructed on same plan as in 

mammals. 

3. Sense of hearing. Auditory labyrinth only (structure 

simple). 

Dogs 

The subject " Dogs " is quite foreign to the usual subjects taken 
up in the senior course at the Boston Normal School, but one which 
has proved to be of great interest to me, and — I hope — assistance 
to others. My plan of work was to study "The Recognition of 
Common Types of Dogs" and "Louis Pasteur and Hydrophobia." 
As no one else was interested at the time in the subject, I entered 
upon the work by myself. 

The first question is. Why did I choose the subject " Dogs " 1 
It was not because I have any especially sporty tendencies, but 
simply because I was more interested in dogs than in birds or fishes 
or various other subjects that have been forced upon me all my life. 
Then, too, I have nearly always had a dog of my own, — at one time 
an Irish terrier, at another a Skye terrier, at another a Cocker spaniel. 
Besides all this, I have often seen dogs of various breeds and wished 
that I could tell what they were. My aim was primarily an uninten- 
tionally selfish one, — a hunger for knowledge that would be a pleas- 
ure and an advantage to myself ; then it gradually broadened out 
until it was a desire to share with others what might interest and 
benefit them. 

Now for some of the difficulties I encountered. When I declared 
my intention to the science class, I read disapproval, doubt, and 
even amusement on the faces of my listeners ; but they were all too 
polite to tell me what they thought — until afterwards. Instead of 
being discouraged by their attitude, I think rather that I was spurred 

[161] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

on to convince them that I could do it. Not until I was fairly- 
launched upon my task did I realize its extent ; and though I spent 
hours and hours in my work, it was never anything but enjoyable. 
The further I went on, the more and more absorbed in it I became. 
In studying "The Recognition of Dogs," besides consulting various 
books upon the subject, I made numerous excursions to hospitals for 
animals, and it so happened that the dogs I most wished to see were 
seldom sick in the hospital when I went there. Pure types were hard 
to find, too, and it seemed to me that mongrels were numerous. At 
first, while studying " Pasteur and Hydrophobia," I was in despair, 
for it seemed as if every book on that subject in the Boston Public 
Library was written by an antivivisectionist, who bitterly denounced 
Pasteur. At last, quite accidentally, I happened upon M. Renaud 
Lezor's book on "Pasteur and Hydrophobia," and also on M. Rene 
Vallery-Radot's " Life of Pasteur," — both of which gave me most 
valuable information. Pasteur achieved so many important tasks that 
I found it difficult in studying his life to stick to my point — " Hydro- 
phobia" — and not to get side-tracked on " Spontaneous Generation," 
or "Tartaric Acid," or some other interesting subject. 

Owing to the kindness of Dr. Tobin and Dr. WeUington, I was 
finally given the privilege of escorting the senior class of this school 
to Dr. Tobin's hospital for animals on Newbury Street, to see some 
dogs and to have a little talk about them. I must confess that I was 
wicked enough to wish that I might be ill, so that the trip to the 
hospital for animals might be indefinitely postponed. 

From the work that I have done in studying the subject " Dogs," 
I feel that 1 have consciously gained more than I ever expected. In 
the first place I gained a great deal of useful information ; and by 
planning out the work myself, I had a chance to exercise choice and 
to arrange material logically. By studying the live specimens I gained 
in powers of observation. A desire to impart to others what I had 
learned brought out cooperative spirit and a feeling of responsibility. 
The independence of the work also gave me pleasure. The trip to 
the hospital for animals and the presentation that I gave to the 
school of "Pasteur and Hydrophobia" gave me more self-confidence, 
and that is what I need more than anything else. 

For the success of my work I owe a debt of thanks to the Bio- 
logical Club, which loaned me a most interesting letter written by 
Miss Helen Scott to Dr. George Gibier Rambaud, Director of the 

[162] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

New York Pasteur Institute, who loaned and suggested books to me 
which were invaluable ; and to Dr. Tobin, who gave me the privilege 
of taking the class to his excellent hospital. 

Before closing these two chapters on what might be 
called the technique of self -organized work, and going on 
to consider its application to different culture themes, a 
few words seem to be needed on the subject of marking 
and examinations. 

A just recognition of merit is an exceedingly important 
aspect of all educational work and a necessary presupposi- 
tion of a good society. To what extent effective merit can 
be determined by examinations and recorded by marks is 
a fundamental question of distributive justice both for 
society and the school. Part of the presuppositions and 
results of the current marking system have been discussed 
in the chapter on Tests for the Schools, but a more special 
inquiry, however short, as to the possibilities of marking 
in its social relationships is necessary to an understanding 
of the subject as a whole. 

Will stated examinations and formal marking diminish 
or destroy personal ambition to social service on the part 
of the pupils, or can these instruments be used to further 
earnest and serious effort for the good of others ? 

The answer to this will depend on whether the marks 
register individual excellence independently of the proved 
ability to organize and take responsibility for the interest 
and advancement of others, or whether this additional merit 
is included in the record. Although the latter virtue is 
always recognized by every one, it is usually left to be 
its own reward, and the marking and ranking which fol- 
lows is concerned with individual ability in an intellectual 

[163] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

performance rather than in successful service to the class, 
the school, or the community. 

One reason for the failure to include the virtue of 
responsibility and helpfulness to others in a mark is the 
difficulty of seeing how it can be done. It is doubted 
whether merit of this kind can be measured with even 
approximate justice, and attention is thereby focused on 
the pupils' knowledge of the dictated course of study. It 
is moreover recognized that certain moral qualities, such 
as that of faithful industry or application to a task, are 
indirectly measured and included in the mark given for a 
well-conned lesson or a brilliant recitation. 

It is quite evident that marking of this kind, or, perhaps, 
any marking whatever, would rarely be resorted to if each 
pupil were taught alone. Tutors of single pupils are satis- 
fied to commend or to point out the deficiencies in the 
work that has been attempted, or even to ignore either 
praise or blame, and encourage and interest the pupil 
simply by analyzing for him the difficulties and indicating 
the problems of the lesson that is to follow. Ordinary 
marking is used chiefly when there is in the same class a 
number of pupils of about the same standard, and since it 
is employed without any reference to self-organization or 
cooperation, the only possible social result is one of individ- 
ual competition. In addition to this, in the grammar grades 
at least, the pupils frequently look upon the mark given 
as pay for work done for the teacher. When this is the 
case they talk a good deal with each other and with their 
parents about the marks earned, and the comparative 
standing of this pupil and that, but very little about the 
subjects which they are supposed to be studying. 

[164] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

It is often assumed by teachers that such marking has 
a good effect upon scholarship. But what can be the mean- 
ing of scholarship under such conditions ? Why do we wish 
to know things anyway ? Is it in order to get ahead of other 
people ? Or is it practically assumed, when pupils work for 
marks, that they really do not wish to know the subject 
and therefore they must be forced to acquire it by outside 
pressure ? If this is so, why use such a word as scholar- 
ship ? A monkey can be bribed or forced to take off his 
little hat and beg for pennies. Is it education which has 
produced this result ? Have we here a simple kind of 
scholarship — a something that is learned for advantage or 
for fear of consequences to self ? Ironically enough, slavish 
learning of this kind in either monkeys or men often turns 
out to be the very weapon by which they are exploited by 
others. They have acquired habits of obedience ai^d indus- 
try, but are without resource and initiative. The knowledge 
they have gained is devoid of any inner power to grow. 
Except for the commonest work of the world, it remains 
sterile and unproductive, both to society and themselves. 

Real scholarship, on the contrary, means a thorough 
organization of knowledge from two points of view. First, 
from the standpoint of the individual pupil. He must con- 
struct the subject for himself and make it his own. In the 
mind of one no subject can ever be the same as in the 
mind of another. One person will study history because 
he is going to be a lawyer, another because he expects to 
preach. The reason for study in each case is different. 
The center of organization is different, and the result will 
necessarily be different. Minds grow like plants of differ- 
ent species. They may live in the same soil and air, but 

[165] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

they select and use the nourishment at their disposal for 
different purposes. One cannot expect a pine tree to be 
organized like a sunflower or a fern. 

The second point of view from which it is necessary to 
regard the organization of knowledge is social. Individual 
differences must exist, but they must also be combined in a 
unity of service. Knowledge is not fully organized until it 
can be used for the practical, aesthetic, or intellectual inter- 
ests of other people. Such organization demands on the 
part of the individual more effective energy of the will 
and a keener mental insight in order to see his own partic- 
ular knowledge from the point of view of some one else. 
For this purpose the student must not only adapt himself 
to the other person, but readapt himself to the content of 
knowledge which he wishes to express. The result is to 
make more profound as well as more practical the internal 
individual organization of knowledge with which he set out. 
In order to attain an adequate and thorough individual 
knowledge, the social point of view, and a more or less ap- 
proximate view of how this knowledge is organized in the 
minds of others, is necessary to the scholar. 

Scholarship, after all, is never something capable of being 
divided into blocks or morsels put together in patterns and 
copied with more or less fidelity. Scholarly knowledge is 
always dynamic and creative. It grows. It never stays 
"put." It passes from mind to mind like the spirit of life 
over dead bones. It vibrates through a different prism in 
every intellect. It plays a different tune in every heart. 
Such scholarship is the only scholarship there is. Children 
are capable of it to the extent of their capacity, and may 
have as much joy in their little knowledge, if they see its 

[i66] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

power with others, as a great scientist in his world-wide 
structures. 

When teachers themselves possess an adequate idea of 
scholarship, they are disposed to regard the current mark- 
ing system as an evil, albeit, perhaps, a necessary one. 
The initial question, however, returns at this point with 
greater insistence. How is such scholarship to be recog- 
nized .? Must the recognition be altogether informal and 
unorganized (as is of course most suitable in the lower 
classes), or is it possible, as differentiation goes on, to find 
some way in which the social spirit of cooperation may 
express itself in favor of those who render it the greatest 
service.'* To do this is difficult in society at large. Is it 
impossible in the school ? 

The present writer is not of the opinion that this impor- 
tant question of distributive justice can be solved by one 
or two experiments. The standing of persons in the com- 
munity or the school and the formal rewards or approval 
they receive must always be but roughly proportionate to 
their real merits. It is enough if an approximate solution 
be indicated, but one which will distinctly recognize the 
social efforts and the social success of individuals who have 
been of service in changing the convictions of others, in 
interesting them in new ideas, in encouraging them to 
more arduous endeavor, and in organizing their knowledge 
in deeper and more comprehensive forms. 

The work of certain of the classes of the Boston Normal 
School will give an example of an attempt to mark along 
this line. The standing of the pupils is determined by a 
final written examination which counts for one third, and 
the class work which is estimated at two thirds of the total 

[167] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

rank. The class work is the only part of the work which 
the pupils themselves share in estimating. For the present 
year all but one of the sections into which the class is 
divided in one of the subjects has voluntarily chosen the 
cooperative marking. No section was persuaded by the 
teacher to adopt the scheme ; some of them tried it tem- 
porarily, but afterwards adopted it permanently because 
they considered it fairer than marking by the teacher alone. 
At any time they please they may revert to the previous 
style of marking. 

The plan is briefly as follows. The class work is in the 
first place cooperative. Each pupil, either individually or 
as one of a group, prepares work which is expressed to the 
section as a whole. Discussion follows, including questions, 
cross-examination, and the pointing out of difficulties. Each 
person who presents any idea labors to be assured that this 
idea is landed in the minds of every one who hears. Any 
one may call upon any one else to speak. In order to see 
how successful any individual has been, the pupils and 
teacher frequently ask how many have got the idea, and 
whether it was new to them, convinced them of something 
they were not sure of, or was distinctly helpful in any 
way. An idea which every one knows already, and which 
might easily be obtained by ordinary reading, is not con- 
sidered helpful. 

At the end of a certain period chosen by the class, say 
six weeks or a month, an hour or more is given up to the 
examination. A preliminary paper is written by each pupil, 
stating from whom help has been received and outlining the 
facts of this quite briefly. The pupils then sit around in a 
circle with papers for marking, and one pupil is called after 

[i68] 



SELF-ORGANIZED GROUP WORK 

another. The other members of the class are then asked 
what they remembered this pupil to have contributed to 
their individual advancement. They are required to prove, 
under cross-examination, by every one including the teacher, 
that this help is genuine. Its degree of importance is also 
estimated. The pupil to be marked is then allowed to say 
what has been left out of account, and if this is regarded 
as worthy and has merely been temporarily forgotten, it is 
counted with the rest. To the pupil's credit will then be, 
for every distinct contribution that has been made, a figure 
representing the number of other pupils who have been 
helped ; for one contribution, perhaps the whole of the 
section ; for another, but a few. If the material is re- 
garded as unimportant, although every one remembers it, 
it is divided by some figure, — two, three, or four, — by 
common consent. 

After all the pupils have been examined in this way, by 
the amount and value of the knowledge that can be re- 
covered from their comrades, they are easily classified by 
a simple inspection of the list. The following example of 
such a list will be of interest to the reader. The letters 
stand for the names of the pupils. 

A— 9, I, 1/2, 2, 4= i6 1/2 1—7 =7 

B — 10, 4 =14 

C — II, 10/4, 7/3 = 15 5/6 

D — 10, 2 =12 

E — 12, 3, 3, 2, I = 21 

F— 9, 4 =13 

G — o = o 

H — 12,8,6/2 =23 

[ 169 ] 



J ■ 


— 4» 3, 


4» 9' 2 


= 22 


K- 


- 14/2, 


12/2, 5 


= 18 


L - 


-1/2 




= 1/2 


M- 


— 10 




= 10 


N ■ 


— 




= 





— 6 




= 6 


P 


— 15/2 


, 5/2 


= 10 



CHAPTER VIII 

REASONING AND THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND 
ARITHMETIC FROM A SOCIETARY STANDPOINT 

The process by which society "keeps itself going" is 
fundamentally a process of reasoning. Even industrial op- 
erations are the results of thinking to realize an end, and 
are judged by the perfection and logical effectiveness with 
which they attain it. The primitive hunter, for instance, 
makes a trap or a fishhook, and catches his dinner as a 
result of his power to reason. When he uses a tool previ- 
ously invented, he still invents the adaptations to the par- 
ticular situation in which it is to be used. Weaving, the 
making of pottery, the building of a fire, etc., are equally 
the results of reasoning, even although accident may have 
led to the observation which started the process. 

The end to be reached is always the " truth " in some 
form or other. A bird in the hand on one side, two in the 
bush on the other, are the alternatives which the construc- 
tion of the bird trap aims to decide between. Whichever 
alternative results becomes the conclusion, and is forced 
upon the experimenter by the data, some change in which 
may also change the conclusion. The reasoning here may 
be largely on a perceptional plane, but in more purely idea- 
tional forms the movement is the same. There are always 
two possibilities, at least, which the mental constructions 
aim to decide between, nor is it always true that these 

[170] 



THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

different mental constructions are made more rapidly than 
are the material constructions which represent them. 

The alternatives or questions to be decided by the facts 
have been called working hypotheses, or conclusions when 
the data support them. Given as certain a set of data or 
previously known truths, the conclusion is easily obtained. 
It is a mere verbal exercise. If all are mortal, there is no 
doubt that Socrates is so. In the same way, if the trap, the 
nature of the bird, and all the circumstances entering into 
the result are previously settled, the conclusion is certain. 
But the conclusion is, in reality, not settled because the 
previous facts are not known until the bird is caught or 
Socrates dies. All that can be known is a question or 
a degree of probability. A working hypothesis thus in- 
cludes not only the outer form of the hypothetical conclu- 
sion, but all the facts which are contained in it. 

Since reasoning is always engaged in trying to settle a 
problem, it is in reality always inductive, i.e. essentially 
constructive. Deduction is only a part of the problem, and 
counts as the analysis or clear recognition of what is con- 
tained or implied in the construction made. No one makes 
an analysis without an object in view, and the object in 
view in reasoning is the proved hypothesis or conclusion. 

The direction of reasoning depends on our interests, and 
we are never much interested unless a problem appeals to 
us as something which can be settled one way or another, 
and which is worth while settling. If we already consider 
a matter known or beyond knowing, we do not reason about 
it. A being who knows everything does not need to reason. 
In ordinary perception we usually feel (whether rightly or 
not) as if we knew directly what seems to be before us. If 

[171] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

our perceptional powers were sufficiently vast to take in the 
universe, we should not need to reason. But since they are 
limited and we cannot see round a corner or into a stone 
wall, we are forced to imagine what it would be like if we 
could ; that is, we build hypotheses based on our experience 
in order to penetrate the unknown, and we test these hy- 
potheses by further appeals to experience. We never do 
this, however, unless we have some purpose in view. The 
chemist looks into the stone wall and sees atoms and mole- 
cules, because he wants to control in some way the material 
there. The general of an army imagines what his opponent 
is doing beyond the hill because he wishes to worst him in 
battle. An hypothesis is thus simply an imagined or con- 
ceptual extension of the world of primary or perceptional 
experience, and is always tested or verified by the changes 
produced in this same experience. 

These experiences, however, are by no means lacking in 
subtlety. The smile of a friend or the whisper of love is a 
perceptional experience which may occasion more mental 
effort, more hypothetical and material construction, to pre- 
serve its memory intact, or to produce its repetition, than 
either the thought of the general on the battlefield or the 
chemist in the laboratory. In order to get experiences of a 
high degree of value, we never confine ourselves to the inner 
side of the world. Even God is no longer the Great Com- 
panion if we do not see Him in the human beings we live 
with and the deeds we do. 

The development of reasoning is simply the question of 
making conscious, and therefore more inventive and con- 
trollable, the adaptation of means to ends. But since we 
are always social beings, both these means and their ends 

[172] 



THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

are measured by the good of society. Even when reasoning 
is applied to gross material, or to mechanical concerns, we 
need the cooperation of our peers. Since building hypoth- 
eses is a work of the imagination, we need to test every hy- 
pothesis by the imagination of others. During the process 
of experience we are forced to analyze, as well as to add 
new features to our conceptions as a result of the criticisms 
of others. And when we produce in the outer world the 
physical result of our hypotheses, we need others to observe 
these results and to test our perceptions as well as our 
ideas. Apart from general presuppositions as to the nature 
of the universe, the background condition of all truth is 
social, and its ultimate criterion is the survival of the 
society to which the individual belongs, a result brought 
about by its improved external or internal adaptations. 

These few and scattered remarks on the general char- 
acter of reasoning may serve as a hint of the pragmatic 
point of view in logic, already ably worked out in this 
country by Professors Pierce, Dewey, James, Moore, and 
others. This point of view is doubtless of service in all 
branches of education, but its value is nowhere plainer or 
more emphatic than in the teaching of science. It is also 
nowhere more needed. 

Science teaching, after having stimulated laboratory and 
research methods in other subjects, has reverted in many 
quarters to an inadequate classical treatment in its own 
field. In view of the fact that the older disciplines have 
been at work for centuries, it was to be expected that 
the conscious and unconscious methods they pursued 
should have arrived at a high degree of excellence. These 
methods are, however, quite unsuited for transfer. The 

[ 173 ] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

same kind of training is not to be expected ; and although 
classics and their allied subjects may develop reasoning and 
observation as well as memory and imagination, it is a dif- 
ferent phase of reasoning from that which properly obtains 
in the sciences. Perhaps it is not too much to say that it 
would be better to teach less science than to fail to have it 
fulfill its characteristic ends. 

To a class containing seventeen high-school graduates 
of Boston and vicinity, who had taken physics (all young 
women), I recently described a lesson given in a third- 
grade class. For this lesson the teacher had rigged up in 
the basement a rude windlass with a rope running along 
the floor. The children were allowed to handle the appa- 
ratus, and they easily discovered that the rope could be 
wound up. At this point the teacher proposed to one boy 
that he might see if he could wind up the rope with some 
one holding back on it. He chose a boy of his size, and was 
surprised to find it was so easy to do. He then tried two, 
and so on till he came to six. Here he stuck, but he said 
that if the handle were closer up to the axle he could pull 
up more, as he could run it round faster. The teacher for- 
tunately recognized this idea as the true budding of scien- 
tific method, and, instead of ignoring it or deciding upon 
its merits dogmatically, called the attention of the rest of 
the class to the statement, without indicating whether she 
agreed with it or not. In the language of the logician, the 
boy had stated a working hypothesis. About half the class 
thought the boy's idea was right. In order to test his hy- 
pothesis, the boy proposed to bore a hole halfway up the 
bar to which the handle was attached, and thus bring it 
closer to the axle. An augur was obtained and this was 

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THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

done. At this point in telling the story I stopped and 
asked the seventeen high-school graduates if they knew 
what was going to happen. Only one claimed to know, 
although another said that if she had the formula she 
thought she could work it out. The rest were in doubt 
as to what the result of the experiment would be. 

This is not an exceptional case, so far as my knowledge 
of high-school graduates goes ; and the answers to certain 
questions of the dean of the Brooklyn Polytechnic Insti- 
tute, relating to matters of common observation of nature, 
indicate that such a condition of affairs is widespread. The 
fault is not to be laid wholly at the door of a lack of work 
or ability on the part of either high-school teachers or 
pupils. It is due rather to the narrowness with which prep- 
aration for college has been made, and to the consequent 
exclusion of free, self-organized work. The result is that 
independence and self-reliance, either of reasoning or ob- 
servation, and the spontaneous love of nature which these 
spring from and engender, are not encouraged by the 
school, and in some cases are actually blighted by its 
influence. Secondhand knowledge is peddled out by the 
teacher in the shape of laboratory directions in lectures, 
through a text-book, or in catechetical form. The appeal 
for facts is not made to nature but to the teacher, who, 
when he gets as far as asking the pupil what he thinks, 
frequently furnishes the conclusions ready-made by telling 
him whether he is right or wrong. In such conditions, 
instead of studying nature the pupil is studying, in stupid 
and roundabout fashion, the mind of the teacher, and is 
not being helped to investigate for himself. If, on the con- 
trary, the facts are sufficiently convincing, the pupil does 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

not ask the teacher whether the idea is right or wrong. 
When the Httle boy in the case above mentioned had 
placed his handle nearer the axle, he soon found that he 
could pull up fewer boys than before. His hypothesis, 
useful while it lasted, had been disproved by facts, and he 
did not need to turn to the teacher and ask whether he 
had been right or wrong. How many science pupils in the 
high schools ever get so far as to have an hypothesis, or, 
if so, have the still more illuminating experience of seeing 
it either proved or disproved by actual facts 1 

In the elementary schools it is still rarer than in the 
high schools to find an intelligent appreciation of the value 
of true hypothesis and experiment. The teacher usually 
seems to have it all previously arranged, running the course 
of nature with one hand and her class with the other. A 
lesson I observed in a third grade by a teacher in training 
illustrates a very general practice. The teacher's subject 
was condensation and evaporation, and she very piously 
knew just what she was going to do in that half hour. She 
lit a spirit lamp, put a dish over it, and asked the children 
to say what they observed. She was a very young teacher, 
and she asked this question a little too soon. The children 
held up their hands, but she told them to wait a little, as 
they couldn't see yet what she wanted them to see. Later 
on the children saw "steam," or water vapor, coming off 
from the water. "That's right," said the teacher. "Where 
else have you seen this .? " " From horses, locomotives, off 
sidewalks," etc. ; the teacher responding, " That's right," or 
indicating her approval or disapproval by other words or 
signs. In this way she led the children to say that " Heat 
turns water into steam." This she wrote on the board. 

[176] 



THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

She then brought in a bottle which had been cooHng out- 
side the window, and turned it round in the steam. The 
children saw the water on it. " Where does the water come 
from ? " " From the steam." " Quite right." The ques- 
tions and answers went on for a little while. I interrupted 
and asked the children, " What would happen if I should 
put the pan of water (which had been left aside meanwhile, 
and had stopped steaming) outside the window where the 
bottle came from } " They did not know. One pupil said 
he didn't think anything would happen, but he should like 
to try it. I let him take the pan to the window, when great 
clouds of steam came off. Here I retired without writing 
on the board, " Cold turns water into steam," although the 
same kind of procedure that had been applied in the first 
place would have justified me in doing so. 

The fault in the practice of the teacher above described 
is not in her directing the children's attention to certain 
facts by means of the experiment she brought in, or in her 
asking for observations the children had previously made. 
Her fault lay in her treatment of the statement, " Heat 
turns water into steam." Leaving aside the way this was 
led up to and suggested, as soon as expressed it was 
pounced upon and stamped as right, evidently because it 
was the statement the teacher had been looking for. All 
other statements as to cause she was evidently prepared to 
ignore or reject. This one she really treated as a proved 
conclusion, and not as a working hypothesis which, in 
order to play its part, ought to have been definitely related 
to the previous facts that had been mentioned, and should 
have been expected to stimulate the observation of new facts 
and the production of rival hypotheses. When something 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

of the latter kind is not done, the children feel that the 
exercise is a sort of guessing game, a conundrum to which 
only the teacher knows the answer ; and even after they 
have obtained it they are left in such a position that they 
are not able to defend their conclusion. The procedure in 
such a case may review facts of observation and put ready- 
made conclusions into the children's minds, but it fails to 
give them the independence and self-reliance necessary to 
treat novel data, which is an essential of inductive reasoning. 
To get this independence some wonder must be aroused in 
the child's mind. The question, moreover, must be put in 
such a form that he can get the answer by a new search 
for facts either directly observed or obtained through wit- 
nesses that he has good reason to believe are reliable. 

" To what extent can children reason at a given age ? " 
is a problem which ought to be conscientiously studied by 
every teacher. This is not usually done. The question is 
much more frequently settled beforehand by saying, " We 
do not expect children to reason so at this age," or "We 
now expect them to be able to reason out this or that for 
themselves." 

Real reasoning of an independent character is frequently 
regarded as too unattainable for ordinary children and ordi- 
nary teachers. Reasoning is much more truthfully and 
profitably to be regarded as an instinct of a very funda- 
mental kind, — one which is found to a certain degree in 
many of the lower animals and at the beginning of men- 
tal life in the child. It is in its rudiments, as Dantec says, 
"the hereditary resume of ancestral experiences covering 
thousands of ages during which our ancestors rubbed up 
against the outside world." The early races of men did 

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THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

not fail to reason. It was by means of their reasoning that 
we have the present advantage of civiHzation. The inven- 
tion of fire, of various tools, of the first canoe, the discovery 
of death as a natural fact, etc., represent greater triumphs 
of reasoning than many of the more elaborate inventions 
and conclusions of the present day, which would, moreover, 
be impossible without their early forerunners. We should 
expect reasoning of a certain kind quite early instead of late 
in the child's development ; and if we observe the child out 
of school rather than in it, we are frequently struck not only 
with the persistence of his inquiries and investigations but 
with the extent of them. The child likes to reason, and it 
is by means of his reasoning that he develops. 

This reasoning, however, has some features of its own. 
Like the reasoning of primitive people, that of the child is 
necessarily related to his experiences, and he must not be 
tested on data which he feels do not have a direct bearing 
on his interests in life. These interests are of course much 
less complicated than those of civilized adults ; but within 
his narrower although gradually widening range, and applied 
to objects he can handle, his conclusions are quite likely 
to be correct. His reasoning is simple because his experi- 
ence is limited, not because his logic is defective. 

If this is true, the part of the science teacher would be 
to widen the child's experience while keeping within the 
grasp of his independent reasoning capacity. We are not 
really widening the child's experience in this sense when 
we merely interest him in facts which are given him ready- 
made, without inquiry or hypothesis. Many children, if 
asked what shape the earth is, will say, " It is round " ; but 
if one enters into conversation with them and finds out 

[179] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

their actual point of view, one soon discovers that they do 
not believe it is round at all. The facts they observe go 
against the hypothesis, and they are sufficiently truthful 
and sufficiently logical in the depths of their minds not to 
admit the unproved statement, however glibly they may 
conform outwardly to the demands of the teacher or the 
adult world. A great many things that go by the name of 
science are of this hearsay type. 

This does not mean that the child should repeat the 
whole history of the race and find out everything for him- 
self without the advantage of stored experience. Quite the 
contrary. To be able to sift evidence offered by others is 
a necessary phase of investigation, but the criterion of any 
such process is actual primary experience. If one is really 
reasoning, this very reasoning will itself decide in any given 
case whether it is more economical to get the facts directly 
or by the cross-examination of witnesses. If the child is to 
be helped to reason, it is part of his training in judgment 
to decide how much of one method and how much of the 
other is suitable in various situations. If the child is to 
gain any power in reasoning, he must be allowed to use the 
reasoning power he already has, and must not be told by 
the teacher in the cases chosen that this or that is right 
or wrong. He must learn to study the facts themselves, 
rather than to be able merely to repeat what teacher or 
text-book says. 

The main difficulty, as above suggested, is to get down 
to the child's real point of view, to go with him as far as 
he is able to go, and not to force him to go farther. A little 
four-year-old girl, walking with her father, came across some 
toadstools growing in the woods. "Oh, look at the little 

[180] 



THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

tables ! " she said. The teacher who cares neither for 
science nor the child's point of view, if asked at this point 
what she would do or say, is likely to give the reply I 
recently received from a teacher, " I should tell the child 
as quickly as I could that they are not tables, but toad- 
stools." To follow the child's lead and get her whole point 
of view, one would need to say, " Yes, let us look at them." 
Wonder is a main ingredient in the child's state of mind at 
this juncture. If the father feels some of this wonder him- 
self, it will be easier for him to get the child's point of 
view. " I wonder how these little tables came here," she 
says. " Perhaps there are some little people who put them 
here," her father says, guessing at what she means. Both 
father and child are working on the same stream of thought, 
and it makes little difference which of them expresses the 
thoughts that come. The father may express the child's 
thought, or the child may express her own. The father 
may even express his own thoughts in so far as they are 
not accepted authoritatively. Let us trace a possible devel- 
opment, although many others are equally possible and 
some perhaps more probable. " If there are little people, 
I wonder where they are." " Perhaps they hide in the day- 
time." " But all these little tables are not alike ; here's one 
that has a top like a ball, and not like a table." " If the 
little people come out in the night, or when we're away, 
I wonder if we could see them." " I am afraid they might 
hear us coming and hide." "I wonder what they use the 
one like a ball for." " What do they make their tables out 
of?" "Well, let's go now, and we'll come back and see 
them to-morrow." " Why, here they are, and the round one 
is flat like the others. The little people must have been 

[i8i] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

here." " Let's take another round one and put a box over 
it and big stones on top, so that the little people can't 
move it, and then let us leave it and come back again." 
" Here's the box again and the stones on it, just as we left 
them." But when the box is taken off, the child sees the 
little flat table just as before. " It can't be the little people. 
It must be something else. Perhaps there are no little 
people," etc. 

We have imagined the latter part of this experience, 
rather than kept, as we have done in the other instances, 
to actual cases, because the mental picture of what may 
happen is necessary to the teacher, and an instance of it 
is not out of place. No doubt such a piece of imagination 
is visionary ; and if the teacher intended to make this vision 
come true in its details, or expected the child to walk 
along this path and fall into this particular trap, as 
Rousseau would doubtless have suggested, he would be 
missing the whole drift of the present argument. If, at 
any point, either the child or the teacher, working in the 
child's stream of thought, can get a hint of a more direct 
way to a satisfactory explanation, it should be adopted at 
once. All real short-circuiting is intellectually an advantage. 
We have here, however, the case of a child only four years 
old, who, we have presumed, has not yet attained a con- 
ception of growth as applied to plants. This should not 
seem strange when we remember that the Indians of the 
Hudson Bay region could not be persuaded to plant beans 
because they had never observed and could not believe that 
plants grew from a seed. If this is the experience which 
will yield a conception of growth strong enough to meet 
the other natural hypotheses in the field, then we should 

[182] 



THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

not be devoting too much energy to this work if twice the 
time needed in the above process were required. 

At the same time, whether a child reaches a given con- 
clusion to-day or next year is not the most important point. 
The important thing is that he makes a real advance, and 
not an illusory one ; that the old point of view really 
changes into a new point of view for good and sufficient 
reasons and because of facts that can be obtained. To 
force him to change it is like committing an assault upon 
the child. It is not helping his reasoning power, but killing 
it. That the child should remain at what we call the myth- 
ical point of view for years is to be expected. If he doesn't 
care to take the trouble to help get the box and stones to 
prove or disprove his hypothesis, there need be no regret 
on the part of his teacher. The land of myth is a goodly 
land. The science teacher ought to know his way in it. It 
is not simply a land of imagination ; it is also one of reason- 
ing. When both imagination and reasoning get more vig- 
orous, they become sharper and more skeptical, and both 
are carried to a higher stage. It is a process of growth. 

The danger is that with our too prevalent centrally 
authorized, secondhand science, the power of growth is 
checked ; and this so-called science becomes worse than 
myth, since it is not backed up by things as they appear, 
even superficially, nor does it offer an explanation of them 
capable of being defended by the pupil. Instead, it is 
hooked on adventitiously in the memory, useful only at 
times of examination for a grewsome display, and because 
such exhibitions are fashionable. 

How can the teacher proceed so that he really gets the 
child's point of view and develops this along its own lines ? 

[183] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

This is comparatively easy if the teacher is not obsessed 
by his own preconceived lesson plan or course of study, 
scheduled to pass certain way stations and arrive at the 
terminus on the hour of the day and at the season of the 
year duly stated in the time-table. To dispense with such 
an obsession, however, is not to get rid of planning : it is 
to make the planning larger and better suited to the mental 
growth of the child. An example of what can be done by 
mere beginners may be of benefit. The training class in a 
city Normal School recently attempted the problem of the 
lesson on steam already described, their main idea being 
to see to what extent the children could reason. Some of 
their experiments were tried in classes and some with little 
groups at home, with about the same result. In the case 
of the groups at home, the children were free to leave if 
they wished. " To what extent would my pupils stay with 
me if they were free to leave ? " might be a very profitable 
test question for every teacher to ask himself. In the fol- 
lowing report of one of these lessons, selected for its brevity 
and not in any way exceptional, the preliminary account of 
the way of approach is also inserted : 

My experience in approaching children : A close acquaintance 
with a child and his ways is essential when trying to get good rea- 
soning from him. When I began I did not think this necessary. I 
now ask as few questions, and these in as unoffending a manner as 
possible. In this way I get the children to take the part of the teacher, 
and find that they give eagerly whatever knowledge they have. Many 
a child's reasoning powers blazed forth with a brilliancy that was 
remarkable. The children's quaint sayings are full of conclusions 
drawn from an imaginative brain. 

Experiment with steam : I put some cold water into a pan, and as 
I placed it over the gas I asked a child what she thought would 
happen. After thinking for a moment, she said smoke would come 

[184] 



THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

off. When the water began to boil, she pointed to the vapor and said 
that was smoke. " Where does it come from ? " " From the water," 
was her answer. "It came from the water because there was a fire 
under the water, making it burn." " Do you think that smoke is the 
same as the kind that comes from burning paper ? " I asked her. " Yes, 
of course," she replied. When the paper was burned, she said that the 
smoke of the burning paper seemed thicker, drier, and did not burn 
her hand when she held it over it. " Smoke from the water was wet," 
she said. A piece of cold glass held over the boiling water showed that 
there was dampness in the "smoke " from the water ; and by tasting the 
liquid on the glass, the child found that it was water. That nothing 
would happen when the pan of warm water was put outside the win- 
dow was the child's theory. When the steam came off she said that the 
air outside must be making the water hot. I told the child to feel of 
the air and then of the water, and see if her theory was correct. " No, 
it must be the cold air made the steam show." As she said this, she 
thought that maybe the same thing was true in the room. To her delight 
she found that it was, after having proved it by several experiences. 

Another example shows the reasoning processes of the 
children in a more latent condition, and gives an illustra- 
tion of social class management favorable to the cultivation 
of an interest in science ; but it also shows the application 
of the scientific point of view and the building of hypoth- 
eses applied to the work of teaching itself. A pupil teacher 
of some experience in a normal training school proposed 
to give a lesson on certain birds to a fourth-grade class. 
He had prepared the lesson on Herbartian Hnes. The ap- 
perceptive masses were to be aroused by his questions on 
how many had seen birds that spring, what they were doing, 
etc. He would then bring in nests that he had collected, 
have the children examine them, and read some poems 
about birds. The application was to be the moral evil of 
robbing birds' nests, despite the fact that he was exhibiting 
birds' nests himself. 

[185] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

The lesson was really so good, and the pupil teacher so 
intelligent, that the superintendent of training thought it 
might be possible to get something better than this dried- 
out Herbartianism into the young man's head. So he said 
to him something like the following : " What do you need 
these apperceptive masses for ? Are they not simply for the 
purpose of understanding the new material, or making pos- 
sible the new processes which you hope to arouse? You 
are going to try to have the children braid together certain 
strands of experience which they already have, so as to 
make something new ; or, to change the figure, their ap- 
perceptive masses are like little hands stretching out for 
something to fill them. The new experiences you hope for 
are the closer observation of the bird's nest, the wonder aris- 
ing from this, and the love and admiration that will sympa- 
thize with the bird that made this little home. Do you think 
you need to go through so many preliminary motions ? Do 
you think their little apperceptive hands are so benumbed 
that they need to have their joints elaborately stretched to 
get them to work ? If a boy suddenly sees a bird's nest on 
the ground or in a tree, his apperceptive masses seem to 
work instantaneously. He doesn't need to call up in his 
mind all sorts of things. They are there already. 

" Even if he had never seen a bird's nest before, there 
would be apperceptive masses, perhaps all the more eagerly 
stretching out for satisfaction. Questions would arise. 
What is it ? What shall I do to find out ? Let me touch 
it. Let me look at it on every side. 

" The apperceptive mass you want is not simply previous 
knowledge, but it is that knowledge in an active, organizing 
state. There must be intention or will in it. Something 

[•86] 



THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

to be done about it is the first consideration. You do not 
want this only at the end of the lesson ; you want it even 
more at the beginning. And surely you do not think that 
the mere will to pay attention to whatever may be ^pre- 
sented * is sufficient. By the way, what was it that started 
the idea in your own mind to give this lesson ? " 

The young man replied that he had seen some birds 
building their nest in a small tree a little distance from 
the school, and this was what made him think of it. 

"Excellent. Why not tell the children this to start with, 
and say what now comes into my mind : * I wonder if any 
of you children could make a bird's nest like the one I 
saw.' Now go and think that over and see if you can 
imagine what the children are likely to reply." 

He returned the next day, and had imagined quite a 
variety of things that might happen if he asked this ques- 
tion. "Well," said the superintendent, "all of these lines of 
imagination are good hypotheses. They are all good les- 
son plans, although they do not seem to have the usual 
Herbartian earmarks projecting too strongly from the head. 
Which of these are you going to follow ? " 

The young man said that he could not say, — that it was 
a problem which depended on the facts, or on what the chil- 
dren would do or say, — but he felt that he was more truly 
prepared from a pedagogical standpoint for having thought 
out not one cut-and-dried course but a considerable num- 
ber of mere hypotheses. He also made his preparations of 
material, books, etc., to cover a number of different possi- 
bilities, and when he started his work he found that several 
of these had been correctly anticipated by him, although 
new ones developed which he had naturally failed to foresee. 

[187] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

When he got before his class and asked his question, he 
had to wait a Uttle for the answer. But a brilliant flash of 
silence is sometimes a relief in the schoolroom. One boy 
finally said : " I don't know about it, — you see the birds 
have bills and we have only hands ; but if I had a needle, 
I think I could do it." Some one asked : "What kind of nest 
is it ^ Where is it ? " The teacher told them the exact place. 
" Why can't we go and see it .? " they said. The teacher 
agreed, and a short excursion was forthwith planned. This 
was something the teacher had thought of in the list of pos- 
sibilities, and a ladder had been placed near the door of the 
school. The children carried the ladder over to the tree. 
There were about twenty-five of them, and only one could 
go up the ladder at a time. The teacher pointed this out 
before they left the schoolroom, and asked what they would 
do during this time. A plan was adopted, suggested by the 
teacher, that as soon as a pupil came down from the tree 
he should write a list of all the things he saw that the bird 
had used in making its nest, and that afterwards all could 
compare what they had written. No plan was made for 
those who stood around before they mounted the ladder. 

After the nest had been seen, nearly every one thought 
that it would be a good thing to try to make one, and then 
some one said : " The bird must have got his material near 
here somewhere. Let us hunt around and see." They did 
this, and soon collected large quantities of dry, dead grass, 
which they raked out from among the new grass coming up ; 
they found bits of string and a horsehair or two, and finally, 
some distance away, they came upon a large bunch of ex- 
celsior which they concluded must have been the very one 
the birds had laid under contribution. 

[i88] 



the' teaching of science and arithmetic 

The next day every one was ready to make a nest, and 
the teacher had provided Httle branches of trees which he 
had stuck in every ink-well aperture. But one of the chil- 
dren proposed that they should go outside and stick the 
branches in the grass, where they could work better, and 
that they should work two by two. This was not to imitate 
the birds, but simply for convenience — a case of coopera- 
tion and division of labor which proved wholly successful. 
The teacher had provided also a nest belonging to the 
same species, which the children could examine when they 
wished. They finished very good nests in the half hour. 
Some of them were firm and well modeled, and at a little 
distance could hardly be distinguished from the original. 

In the next, or third lesson, the teacher asked them if 
they wished to know anything more about the birds whose 
nests they had been studying, and a large number of ques- 
tions were asked. In asking these the teacher got an op- 
portunity, sanctioned by the class, to read at least one of 
the poems he had in mind, and to impart a great deal of 
information about the eggs, the probable number of this 
species in the locality, their winter quarters, their enemies, 
etc. The children were so much interested in the work 
that of their own initiative they proposed making some 
more nests of a different species. 

Work of the kind just described starts with the initiative 
of the teacher, but runs out immediately into work which 
is largely cooperative and self-organized. But when fully 
recognized, self-organized groups, working more or less in- 
dependently, are permitted, the point of view of the chil- 
dren is perhaps even more easily obtained. As an example 
of this I may cite the following case. A group of these 

[189] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

third-grade boys came to the teacher, saying that they 
wanted to find out if ants could hear. They asked her to 
give them a half hour of the school time which had been 
set aside for such purposes. They had provided themselves 
with mouth organs, etc. The teacher considered that the 
half hour would not be wasted, and after hearing their plan, 
and perhaps offering some criticism and advice, gave them 
permission. They reported that they could not decide. They 
had counted the ants that came up out of the hole during 
the sounding of the various instruments, and found that 
there were about the same number as when there were no 
sounds made, although one boy claimed that there were a 
few more and that perhaps they could hear. But while they 
gave up this problem, they had found another. Whether 
ants could hear or not, was a question which could wait for 
solution ; the point of interest now was whether they "went 
around like dogs, by smell," and the group asked for more 
time for this investigation. It was the springtime, when the 
ants came out and moved around their holes for a few hours 
only, in the warm part of the day. The boys chose a hole 
near a large flagstone on which they marked with chalk the 
course of each ant that came out of the hole. They made 
a map of this on a piece of paper in order to show the rest 
of the children in the class. After the ant had gone a cer- 
tain distance they touched him, and in many cases he went 
back into the hole. They found that when the ants were out 
about two or three feet they did not go back along their 
track, but when a longer distance from the hole they did. 
The latter observation supported the hypothesis of the boy 
who thought it likely that they "went around like dogs," 
while the former observation went against it. As the hole 

[ 190] 



THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

was lower than the flagstone, the hypothesis, that as the ants 
came near they saw the hole, was excluded. The boy who 
advanced the first hypothesis said that close to the hole there 
might be lots of tracks made by other ants which had not 
been marked, as there were a great many more ants moving 
around near the hole than farther out, and, in harmony with 
this, although the returning ant did not follow his track, yet 
he didn't go straight to the hole either. Farther out there 
might be but one track and this the one which was marked. 
The theory of smell was accepted as demonstrated. 

They returned, however, with still another problem. 
They had been poking sticks down the ants' hole, and 
wondering how far down it went. Some weeks before this 
they had been molding candles in illustration of early New 
England life, and one of the boys said, " If we had some 
candle grease .and poured it down one of these holes, and 
then dug it up, we would see where it went to." They 
expressed this to the teacher, who helped them to get some 
paraffin. They thought they ought to have enough, and 
provided themselves with nearly a pint. They melted this 
over a spirit lamp out at the ants' hole, meanwhile prevent- 
ing the ants from going in. When the paraffin was melted, 
they poured it down. Nearly the whole of it disappeared. 
Then they commenced to dig the cast up, carefully follow- 
ing its branches in every direction. The discoverers of 
Herculaneum or Pompeii probably had no greater pleasure 
than these boys in unearthing their buried city. They 
broke the cast somewhat, but put it together as best they 
could, took it into the class, showed it and explained it, 
and later had a photograph made of it by another group 
of boys who were organized as a photographic group. 

[191] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

Whether Tarde's hypothesis that all reasoning is social 
is correct or not, there can be little question that social 
organization greatly stimulates the process by giving the 
individual reasoner both the help of criticism and the sense 
of social serviceableness in case of success. Although this 
whole chapter has been a plea for what is called independ- 
ent reasoning, it should be realized that what is aimed at 
is rather a displacement of the exclusive approval of the 
teacher for the broader social interest and approval of the 
whole class, including here the child within the heart of 
the teacher. The judgment of his peers, even when unfav- 
orable, cannot be dispensed with by any reasoner. If it is 
difficult to prove that it is always society which reasons 
in and through the individual, at least it is plain that he 
reasons best who is in free contact with a social environ- 
ment sufficiently close to his own level to permit of his 
making and unmaking its opinions, rather than being con- 
stantly dominated by a semi-supernatural being who is 
always right — even when he isn't. 

And yet how differently "independent reasoning" has 
been interpreted by many teachers. It seems to have been 
thought that the direction, " Reason this out by yourself, 
— do your problems without any assistance," represented 
the essence of good pedagogy in the matter. It does not 
seem to have been generally realized that a social motive 
on the part of the child is necessary for the best results. 
Independence is in reality an outcome of interdependence, 
and becomes differentiated as a special process only as a 
social economy. Every individual should, of course, carry 
any process or product as far as he can without personal 
waste of time and energy, before he submits it to society 

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THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

either as a service to them or in the hope of getting help 
himself. But the object of this is social, and the social 
reactions of those he appeals to are the best corrections of 
a tendency to be too dependent on others. The limits of 
this dependence and the measure of economical independ- 
ence he can only learn from experience. To force and 
exaggerate independence beyond the social feeling of one's 
peers is to make it false and vain, and leads to egoism 
rather than to true strength and power. 

Space does not permit us to deal with all the possible or 
even practicable opportunities for reasoning in the schools. 
A few words may, however, be permitted on arithmetic, which 
is a kind of science, and which has long been supposed to 
be useful in educating the power to reason. There is little 
doubt but that this subject ought to offer great advantages 
in this direction, and there is equally little doubt that it 
seems to fail very largely in producing the expected results. 

Several years ago the present writer, with the help of 
some of his pupils, examined two schools in arithmetic. 
Thirteen hundred and fifty children, from the third grade 
up to the eighth, were taken, one after the other, into a 
separate room, and handed a tally register capable of count- 
ing up to a thousand. This, as the reader knows, is con- 
structed, although only about the size of a large watch, 
somewhat like the register for ringing up fares on the 
street cars. The children were interested in handling the 
tally register and experimenting with its power to count. 
If they did not develop this interest spontaneously, they 
were shown how the instrument worked. 

The register was then set at a number between two and 
three hundred, which did not end in a zero. A watch was 

[193] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

pulled out, and the child was told that we wished to see 
how many strokes of the little lever he could make in a 
minute, but first he was asked to read off the number with 
which he began. If this, for example, was 232, the figure 
was written down in the exact middle of a sheet of paper 
fourteen inches square. The child was then told to go 
ahead. As the reader will suspect, it was soon spread 
around by the boys and girls that they were being tested 
for their rapidity, and each was anxious to do his best. No 
word of arithmetic was mentioned to either teacher or pupil. 

When the minute was up, the child was stopped, and 
with apparent carelessness the pencil and the paper with 
the record were pushed over to him, and with the last record 
of the tally register in his hand, he was asked, " Well, how 
many have you done > " Except for a few decimals, the 
examples never went beyond simple adding, subtracting, 
multiplying, and dividing, but examples of all these were 
found. At this rate, without any intelligence, and from a 
calculation of mere chance, twenty-five per cent of the cases 
ought to have been subtraction, but as a matter of fact the 
percentage never fell so low as that. The table on the 
opposite page gives the percentage of pupils of each grade 
who put the larger number above the one already written 
on the paper and subtracted the smaller one from it. 

The question of why the drop occurred in the fifth and 
sixth grades is not so important. It came out in both 
schools, but was greater in one than in the other. Doubtless 
a still larger number of children would tend to flatten out 
the irregularities of the curve considerably. The important 
fact is the total number who divided, added, or multiplied, 
instead of subtracting. It would seem as if the work in 

[ 194] 



THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

arithmetic had not produced a great deal of gumption or 
reasoning power in the pupils when a simple problem of 
this kind, although a little outside the stereotyped school 
requirements, produced such disappointing results. 

The trouble is evidently at one point. The experiment 
requires the pupil not merely to solve, but to frame the 
problem to himself. He has not simply to answer the 




7 8 Grades 

question ; he has to ask it. He needs to make some kind 
of hypothesis as to how he is to go to work, and if the 
hypothesis is to be a good one, he must compare it with 
other possible hypotheses and submit them both to the 
reasonableness of the results obtained. The children who 
were examined probably had had little practice in this kind 
of thing at school. Instead, they had probably, for the most 
part, worked out examples after they had been shown how 

[195] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

to do other examples of the same kind. This tends to 
build up a habit which is often wholly unreasoning. The 
essence of reasoning is lost if the original question or 
hypothesis is not developed. 

It seems plain that children's work in arithmetic ought 
to be derived much more largely than at present from their 
own needs and their own spirit of inquiry (cf . case of arith- 
metic in cooking group, page 109). If this is done, the 
impress of their actual environment will usually be found 
in the questions they ask. An instance of this may be cited 
from the work of a seventh-grade class in a small town. 
This town is supplied with water from a standpipe, around 
which the children had often played, and which had aroused 
their admiration on account of its large size. When the 
teacher asked them if they had ever wondered about any- 
thing that perhaps some calculation could solve, some of 
them said that they had wondered for a long time how 
much water was in the standpipe, but did not see how they 
could find out. 

' The teacher did not take it upon himself to show offhand 
how this could be done. It may be that he was not very 
certain himself. But since every one was willing to look 
into the question, he proposed that they study the prob- 
lem overnight and see how far they could get with it. They 
knew how to measure cubical contents if the figures were 
rectangular, but they had had no experience with cylin- 
drical bodies. The problem was to invent a method, if 
possible ; or, if not successful in this, to enumerate as 
many of the facts as they saw to be necessary. 

Next day all of the class thought it would be necessary 
to get the height and the diameter. An excursion to the 

[196] 



THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND ARITHMETIC 

standpipe was made, and the height was obtained by meas- 
uring the lowest sheet of cast iron of which it was built and 
counting the number of sheets to the top. The breadth was 
obtained by measuring across the shadow cast by the sun. 
These methods were, of course, invented by the pupils. 
Some one measured the circumference, not because he 
knew what to do with it, but because he thought it might 
possibly be needed. 

At this stage the problem was laid by for some days, no 
one seeing what to do next. Then an hypothesis was brought 
up by one boy. If it were a rectangular figure of the same 
diameter, the contents would be so and so, or if we cut off 
the corners of the rectangle and added the opposite corners 
together, we could then subtract two of these new rectangu- 
lar figures from the first mass. This, at least, would come 
somewhere near the contents, but it was not very satisfactory. 

A couple of boys had meanwhile been experimenting with 
a roughly cylindrical piece of wood. They split it longitu- 
dinally and piled it as cord wood is piled, and then they 
saw that if they could only make the pieces fit together, 
the problem would be solved. A piece of wood was split 
into quarters, these divided again and again, and the pieces 
piled together so that they fitted to each other like wedges. 
After doing this, the boys saw at once that this pile had a 
height equal to half the diameter, a width equal to half the 
circumference, and a length equal to the original length of 
the cylindrical piece of wood. The application of this bit 
of experimenting to the standpipe, as the reader sees, was 
a very easy matter. 

In this work the teacher criticised hypotheses and offered 
suggestions only in the spirit of self -organized work, without 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

expecting them to be adopted, and without assuming that 
the problem would ever be solved, or that he as teacher 
was responsible for its solution ; nor did he need to say 
when the work was done, whether the answer was correct 
or not. 

Science and arithmetic, like reading and writing, are in 
reality arts of life and of the school. It is, moreover, the 
art of reasoning, rather than the dry facts of science, which 
is best capable of being taught. When effective social ac- 
complishment of some kind is the aim placed before pupils, 
rather than the passive reception of facts, not only does 
this treatment inspire pupils to better efforts, but permits 
the teacher to act as their helper and adviser in the great 
art of living. Society and the teacher may act as causes in 
putting before pupils preferred ideas and demands, but not 
until the pupils can reciprocate, regard themselves as crea- 
tive causes, and find a social environment which they can 
treat as an effect as well as a cause, can these very ideas 
and demands on the part of society be comprehended and 
willingly obeyed. To create society is as necessary as to 
be created by it. 



[198] 



CHAPTER IX 

READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

The gap between life and the school is nowhere more 
apparent than in the teaching of reading, language, and 
literature, and yet there are no subjects which afford a 
richer educational reward when the aforesaid gap is closed 
up or ehminated. Ordinary thinking on the subject of the 
teaching of reading has got so far as to recognize that 
learning to read means the use of a language for the eye, 
and that the way in which a child learns the spoken lan- 
guage may throw some light on the way in which he can 
best acquire the written one. W. T. Harris, for example, 
has convincingly shown that a large part of the work in 
school consists in changing the ear-minded pupil into one 
who is eye-minded. 

Reading means what may be called eye-mindedness, but 
it is not eye-mindedness to the neglect of ear-mindedness. 
With hearing people a written word is always based on a 
spoken one, and retains its connection with the auditory 
experience as a part of the meaning lying back of the sym- 
bol which is seen. The acquisition of eye symbols is thus 
not a substitute for auditory symbols or auditory experi- 
ences. It is an extension of them which reacts upon and 
actually increases the refinement of the auditory experience. 

For example, a person may read silently a poem which 
he has never before heard, and notice rhythms which he 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

never previously experienced. It is evident that there is 
here an auditory experience underlying the recognition of 
the symbols for the eye, and that the silent reading of the 
poem recasts this plastic auditory material and creates some- 
thing new out of it. When one reads a poem in a foreign 
language which he has never heard, although he may un- 
derstand the text, he usually fails to get the pleasurable 
rhythms that should belong to the exercise. This is not 
because he is without auditory experience of a mental char- 
acter, but because he has built up uncouth auditory experi- 
ences which serve as stepping-stones to the understanding 
of the visual symbols. This may have been done without 
any outward sounding of the words. Put in another way, 
he reads the foreign language in nearly the same way that 
he would read his native tongue. The eye-mindedness de- 
manded some sort of ear experience as a prerequisite. 

When deaf people learn to read, the case is different. 
There is no preliminary ear-minded experience. The mean- 
ing of the visual symbols is obtained as an extension of 
another class of conventionalized signs largely composed 
of movements which are built up by a direct association 
with objects, actions, and various experiences of life. 

If this is true, the attempt to teach hearing children to 
read by the direct association of the visual sign with action, 
objects, etc., must be characterized as a mistaken effort, — 
one, however, which has in some quarters been taken seri- 
ously and practiced in the schools. The fact that in such 
conditions the children do learn to read is no disproof of the 
futility of the theory. If, by extra enthusiasm on the part 
of the teacher, they may even learn as quickly, if not more 
quickly than in other ways, there is still no disproof. The 

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READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

teacher, for example, holds up an apple, or performs some 
action, and, without saying anything, writes the word apple 
or the name of the action on the board. What a fond illu- 
sion for her to think that a direct association has been 
made between the visual idea or impression of the apple 
and the written word ! What happens in the child's mind 
is probably some form of inner conversation : " What does 
dear teacher mean now ? Oh, yes ; she wants us to know 
that what she has written stands for apple." The inner 
auditory experience has been revived, somewhat clumsily, 
no doubt, but with sufficient effectiveness in most cases. 

These current illustrations of perverse applications of 
the laws of association will serve to show the direction of 
their true use, but no dependence on association alone will 
serve to solve the problem of reading for the teacher. The 
development involved in learning to read means a great 
deal more than an added layer of eye-mindedness. The 
problem of language is deeper and more comprehensive, 
and directly involves character and personality, social rela- 
tionships, power of interpretation, beauty, utility, and need 
of expression. These somewhat vague conceptions are all 
controlled by the idea of social relationships. For the stu- 
dent of the individual child this resolves itself into the 
necessity for a stronger motivation, which, as Mr. Reeder 
says in his excellent monograph, constitutes the next step 
forward. The aim of the present writer is to show that 
this motivation is principally social, and that service gladly 
given and eagerly received is the mainspring of progress 
in learning to read. 

As to its origin, spoken language must be inferred to be 
primarily a social phenomenon, — a means of communication. 

[201] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

It could only occur when a considerable degree of social 
organization had already become a fact. As soon as it 
appeared, there was nothing that acted more powerfully 
on social combination itself. Spoken language became the 
vehicle and foundation of all kinds of social action. Think- 
ing was forthwith lifted from the animal stage of the per- 
cept to the human one of the concept. Such thinking is 
necessarily the outcome of social relationships, and involves 
the use of a conventional sign understood by others, and 
representing no longer an outward object, but an aspect or 
portion of it capable of being recognized in other objects 
of an entirely different kind. 

If we follow briefly the development of a child's speech, 
we shall see that, while it is impulsive and inventive, it is 
also socially pragmatic or experimental at all stages. From 
the beginning it involves a social environment. It is by 
noticing the effect upon others of the sounds he makes 
that the child slowly learns the use of language as a tool, 
and only in proportion as he can use it upon others does 
he appreciate its effect upon himself. 

Children, when learning to talk, begin with a twittering 
of vowel sounds, and very soon add the guttural consonants. 
They readily respond to adults in their own way by the 
ninth week. This is as yet nothing more than a kind of 
recitative, more like music than language, and reminds us 
of the fact that musical sounds are probably a precursor 
of speech in the development of the race (l). At about the 
same age, or a little after, they also initiate sounds for the 
purpose of producing an effect on those around them. By 
the next month there is an improvement in the musical 
qualities and an appreciation of rising and falling inflection, 

[202] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

but yet without words. The consonant sounds requiring 
the front of the mouth and lips are now added ; and it 
is to be noted that at this period the child is experiencing 
an irritation of the gums due to the cutting of his lower 
incisors, which appear about the seventh month and take 
from one to ten weeks to erupt. It would seem likely that 
this is what brings in the use of the labials, which are often 
made rather by the gums and lips than by the lips alone. 

It is not until these sounds are pretty well established 
by practice that the brain is sufficiently developed to asso- 
ciate experiences with the sounds in such a way as to at- 
tach specific meaning to them (there is, of course, some 
meaning as mere sounds from the time of the first re- 
sponse). The first real words occur about the ninth month, 
when the upper incisors are giving trouble. Bye-bye is 
sometimes a first word. Di-di^ pa-pa^ and mam-ma are often 
the first. These are words requiring the use of the frontal 
part of the mouth. Let us study the possible origin, in the 
experience of the child, of one of these words, and we shall 
see that its use is probably neither a matter of pure imita- 
tion nor of invention, but a process requiring the coopera- 
tion of both the effort of the child and its interpretation 
on the part of adults. 

Let us take the word mamma^ which many children use 
as a name for " mother." The usual view is that they hear 
this and imitate it. The name, however, is widespread in 
many languages, and may have some deeper origin than 
foresight on the part of parents, who, realizing the need to 
be called something, invented this word as a suitable name. 
The exceptions throw some light on the process at work. 
A child recently reported to the present writer called his 

[203] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

mother ga-ga, a word which was accepted and used in later 
life as a pet name. I found that this child began to cut his 
front teeth quite late. Now, why did this child ?>3.y ga-ga 
instead of mamma ? A reasonable hypothesis is at once 
suggested. The probabihty is that this child was still say- 
ing ka-ka, ga-gay etc., when most children are engaged on 
labials. Let us continue the hypothesis and see how it will 
fit the facts which may have been present at the time. 

The baby is lying in his crib after awaking, and cooing 
comfortably, when hunger or some other irritation disturbs 
him. As this increases slowly, the cooing changes in char- 
acter, without any intention, but simply because there is 
an overflow from the center of the disturbance into the 
processes already going on. The noises become what the 
adult calls more fretful or angry, and at the same time 
louder. This naturally brings the mother. If the baby has 
not yet arrived at the crying stage, but is still making 
rather loud guttural sounds, the mother, as she rushes in, 
imitates these sounds : Gaga, mother's blessed ga-ga,'* 
etc. This is doubtless repeated many times. So far the 
sound is not yet a name, but might as well be one for the 
baby as for the mother. But presently the baby associates 
the noises he makes with the appearance of the only object 
of the environment which relieves his disturbance. To bring 
in the loud sounds sooner, even when the disturbance is 
very slight, is easy because the pathway is already formed. 
This may, indeed, happen automatically, without the baby's 
intention, but when it does happen, the mother notices the 
difference. She rushes in more quickly because the baby 
seems to be calling her. She repeats the call word with an 
almost festal celebration. It becomes attached to herself in 

[204] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

the baby's brain, and may afterwards be used with definite 
intention because he knows the results which will follow 
its use. 

So far there is only the preparation for a concept. The 
conscious process includes too much, and in another way 
too little. Ga-ga means nothing more than relief from dis- 
turbance. Others beside the mother will answer this, and 
at first the child may call any one ga-ga. By a similar 
process, however, the particular kind of relief, and, later 
on, other things besides relief, even repression or correc- 
tion, become added to his experience, but always associated 
with the original germ from which they have grown. The 
word stands now for a whole complex of social relationships 
and intercommunications which spring to the mind as an 
apperceptive mass whenever it happens to be thought or 
spoken. Still later it may be applied to other mothers, and 
be used as a real class word, defining certain relationships 
and excluding others. This, at least, happens readily in 
cases where the same kind of process yields the word 
mam-ma instead of ga-ga^ and where the child finds other 
children using, with a different personal application but 
with a similar meaning, the same word which he himself 
has learned to use. The finishing of the word, and the 
finishing of the concept behind it, requires a social en- 
vironment as much as its original inception. In the 
development of its latter aspects as a class word, the ex- 
perience required is the intermingling with other people, 
particularly those on the same level, and the interpreta- 
tion of their slightly different standpoint. It requires a 
community as a presupposition. Both the language and 
the thinking are social functions. 

[205] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

In this process the uniqueness of the individual's expe- 
rience and its essential solidarity with the experience of 
others play an equal part. Neither of these aspects, how- 
ever, can be developed without actual social contact ; that 
is, without the expression, and at the same time the recep- 
tion, of another's point of view. Conception, as Baldwin 
claims, may doubtless be viewed as the motor side of 
thought, at least in a social being. Discussion of ideas 
that people actually have is thus necessary to the devel- 
opment of both thought and language. The object of dis- 
cussion, moreover, is not simply to find the similarities 
involved. No working cooperative similarities of experience 
are found without also revealing differences. To find the 
point at which each can take hold in his own way of the 
social rope, and pull with others for the good of all and 
the good of each, — this is the aim of education in lan- 
guage as in other spheres of culture. 

Unfortunately many teachers seem imbued with a differ- 
ent notion. Their idea of teaching is not one in which the 
thoughts and characteristics of the pupils are to be re- 
vealed, and to some extent exchanged, but one in which 
the teacher's thoughts — and ironically enough, these not 
always his own thoughts — are expected to play an enor- 
mously predominant role. Language is thus, like other 
subjects, imposed from above, and even when the pupil is 
called upon to " express himself," he finds that he is com- 
municating nothing of interest either to the pupils or to the 
teacher. He is simply exhibiting his paces in order that he 
may be corrected by his master. Nature, however, saves 
the situation for the social spirit, if not for the refinements 
of language. Many children who know the rules of grammar 

[206] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

perfectly well would be ashamed to follow them with their 
comrades. Pupils who can write elegant themes for the 
school drop most of what they seem to have learned when 
they write real letters, and during their holidays they care- 
fully avoid reading the same kind of literature which they 
have been led or forced to read at school. 

To advance, however, to the transition from spoken to 
written language. The question of how or when children 
should begin to use written or printed language is usually 
settled for them without much reference to what they feel 
they need. No doubt any single individual, so long as he 
is isolated from others, would never wish to extend his lan- 
guage to the visual form. But he is not isolated, and in a 
school he ought to be favorably situated as regards social 
helpfulness and mutual cooperation. The difficulty in teach- 
ing children to read even at the early age of five or six is 
not, however, so great at the beginning as a little later on. 
The child brought up in civilized surroundings is frequently 
eager to learn to read, and will go through a good deal of 
drudgery, and even unnecessary drudgery, to get hold of a 
power which he sees used by every one. He already real- 
izes a good part of the social importance of the achieve- 
ment. This, however, tends to be somewhat abstract and 
external, appealing rather to his social vanity than to any 
deeper feehng of personal pleasure and satisfaction, or 
increased power to serve others. It is because of this in- 
efficiency of motive that reading often becomes a drudgery. 

There ought, therefore, in the first place, in everything 
the child reads, to be some immediate satisfaction. If he 
works hard on a sentence or a paragraph, he ought to get 
something out of it. Apart from his general satisfaction 

[207] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

in overcoming difficulties, and his satisfaction in the won 
as bringing him nearer to his desire to read like grown-ups, 
he should feel that every sentence or paragraph is of value 
for its own sake. It ought to stir a desire, satisfy a need, 
complete a picture, give valued help in his play, or be of 
use to him in a more immediate way. The succession of 
sentences or paragraphs ought to follow in such a manner 
as to help one another and build up his growing image. In 
other words, the arrangement should, from the standpoint 
of the child, be as artistic and dramatic as possible. A' 

Very much the reverse seems to be characteristic of most 
of the reading lessons in our primers, as well as of the other 
reading material which teachers use. I recently observed 
a characteristic scene in a first-grade class which will illus- 
trate this feature. The teacher had made for the children 
a lesson on the squirrel, and had interested them by a little 
preliminary talk. She then wrote the first sentence on the 
board : See the squirrel. This did not require much work, 
and the children were ready for the second : His 7iame 
is Chippy. There were two new words in this, and the 
effect of the sentence was stimulating and attractive. One 
little boy turned round to the rest of the grade (the class 
was standing up in front), and whispered the news with 
pleasure, — "His name is Chippy." It is easy to see that 
the suggestion so far is that there is to be something indi- 
vidual and interesting and real in what is to follow. Expec- 
tation is aroused. The next sentence was. His coat is red. 
The children attacked this courageously, but when the 
meaning dawned on them there was a decided loss of 
interest, and the teacher had to begin to call upon them to 
stand straight and look toward the board. The reason of 

[208] 



n 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

this seems obvious. The sentence did not carry out any 
of the expectation that had been suggested by the previous 
one. It was flat, stale, and unprofitable. They all knew 
that the squirrel was red. They had seen the picture of it, 
and even if they hadn't, it was not important. As to its 
being a coat instead of a skin or fur, this was a figure of 
speech that was evidently commonplace. They began to 
feel now that there was "nothing doing," and the expec- 
tation of a romance was blighted. The next sentence. His 
tail is bushy i completed the debacle, and there was hardly 
any recovery at the next sentence, — He lives in a den^ — 
which, if it had been introduced earlier, might have seemed 
alluring. As this lesson went on, it became plain that the 
children were right, — there was nothing in it to reward 
them for the labor expended. Children are, after all, like 
other people in this respect. They do not object to work, 
but they want the work to yield a return proportionate to 
the effort involved. 

One essential thing about all interest, and therefore 
about all reading and literature, as suggested above, is the 
expectation it arouses as to what is to follow. This is an 
important aspect of the development of attention and the 
will, and when it is neglected children are being taught 
to recoil from work rather than to meet it with courage. 
Even if they are forced, or led by extraneous motives, to 
do what is required, the reflection comes later that in itself 
it was not worth while. This is most disastrous, and is 
alone sufficient to account for the vulgar newspapers and 
other cheap reading matter which the masses educated in 
our public schools instinctively fall back upon when they 
are free to direct themselves. 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 






Let us take a piece of reading matter suitable for a sec 
ond or third grade, and see how this sense of expectation 
can be utiHzed. Let us suppose, moreover, that the teacher 
finds a certain number of the class who need some assist- 
ance in order to arouse their expectation. If the reader 
follows the lesson without skipping, perhaps putting a card 
over the lower part of the page and slowly sensing the 
meaning of the words printed in italics, at the same time 
imagining what is to follow, he will get an idea of what 
the children, who are compelled to read slowly because 
they are working hard, may be experiencing. 

A frog saw two birds flying overhead. 

The first sentence is never very difficult for any one, so 
that the teacher may pass on without remark. There are 
not likely to be any stragglers. 

He called to them and said : 

This distinctly arouses expectation, and in order to see 
that every one gets this, the teacher may ask, " What do you 
think he said } " The children will offer various answers. 
The teacher should be careful not to show that he approves 
or disapproves of any of them. These answers are only 
hypotheses, like the speculations we make at the begin- 
ning of a novel as to how it is going to turn out. If the 
teacher favors any of the answers, there will be less need 
for the children to read the next sentence in order to see 
for themselves who is right or nearest being right. 

" Take me with you ^ 

If none of the children had hit upon what the frog said, 
it may be still more interesting than if they had. This 
depends upon whether the story goes the children's imagi- 
nation one better or not. 

[210] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

^^ How can wef " said the birds. ^^You have no wings T 

What is going to happen now ? Perhaps by this time 
something further on than the next sentence, something 
of the drift of the whole story, may be imagined by the 
children. 

" / will show you how^' said the frog. " Here is a stick. 
Let each of you take hold of one of the ends^ and I will take 
hold of the middle. ^^ 

This, at least, raises the question of the success of the 
plan, and the children will readily speculate on how it is 
going to turn out. 

The birds did as they were told, and then flew off with 
the frog, who held on tightly with his mouth. 

If the children are already aroused and expectant, it 
would be idle to pile one thing on top of another and delay 
further by asking for the expression of their ideas. If the 
teacher sees by their looks that they are working well, with 
enthusiasm for the result, this is a good time to go right 
on without interruption. 

As they were flying over a field some farmers saw them. 
Said one of them: ^^ Look at those birds carrying the frog. 
What a good idea I " The frog heard this and was filled 
with pride. He opened his mouth to tell the farmer that he 
was the one who had thought of this plan, but in doing so 
he let go of the sticky and, falling to the ground, was dashed 
to pieces. 

It is quite obvious that if this story should be illustrated 
by a picture showing the frog tumbling through the air 
while the birds are sailing aloft with the stick, such a 
picture would spoil rather than help the interest of the 
children. This might not be the case with adults, the 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 



nuch 



difference being that children are compelled to work miici 
harder in getting ideas from the printed page than are 
people who have already learned to read. The pictures in 
most of our readers seem to be inserted almost wholly 
from the adult standpoint, and without consideration of 
the children's needs. 

Anything that is more than commonplace in the fore- 
going analysis of reading matter for children is dependent 
on an application of the rights of social existence. Reading 
means that some one, namely the author, is talking to the 
children and telling them something they wish to hear. 
When they no longer care to hear it, the thing becomes 
an imposition, and trains the habit of finding ways to close 
one's ears. This is done at different mental levels. A child 
may be able to pronounce words and sentences, may even 
put in all the elocutionary twirls and twitches which the 
teacher demands, and yet have his higher hearing closed 
because there is no need that it should be used. It is also 
plain that permitting children to express their expectation 
of what is coming, and asking other children what they 
think of their surmises, is in itself a social process which 
results in extending the imaginative grasp and stimulating 
the interest of every child concerned. 

Mere reading, even if conducted in a partially social 
spirit, is only the passive half of a completely social 
process. The procession of gaunt bookworms that crawls 
forth from the British Museum every evening when the 
doors close have acquired the reading habit, but very few 
of them have acquired anything else. It is a question 
whether the habitues of the dramshops are not having as 
good a time and getting as much out of their lives. If the 

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READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

schools do no more for reading than to teach people to 
read, it may be said paradoxically that they are not even 
teaching them to read. Unless passive reading results in 
active power, even the first half of the process is incom- 
plete. A man may read and hear the Golden Rule ; may 
assent to it passively or theoretically ; may think he under- 
stands it ; may even regard it with religious adoration ; but 
unless he uses it in the practice of his life, he will fail to 
get its meaning. The motor outgo, on the contrary, yields 
not only vividness to intellectual content, but actually 
increases clearness. Mr. Henry D. Lloyd's book, to take 
a recent example (2), evidently derives its insight as an 
expression of the Golden Rule from the test of action. 
All ideas, indeed, are but hypotheses, which must be tried 
out to be understood. Adults, with a wider range of re- 
membered results in life, may not need to experiment so 
often in order to test the notions with which they are 
already familiar. It is frequently forgotten that children 
are without this experimental data, and that education is 
for the purpose of supplying this deficiency. Some things 
are, of course, instinctive, having been stamped into the 
nervous tissues by the forgotten experiments of the race. 
But if this summed up the case, conscious education would 
be as unnecessary for a child as for a chick. Most things 
of the highest and most controlling value are not so in- 
stinctive. Even the prejudice against lying is an acquired 
one in most cases, — when it is acquired at all. " Don't 
lie" is a theory until the child, either personally or by 
observation of others, has had some experience which has 
bitten into his soul. If, then, we are to apply the Golden 
Rule to children in the school, their reading matter must 

[213] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 



I 



furnish them with ideas which they can use, and which 
they care to use experimentally, in their present lives. The 
future application is a long way off, and, moreover, can be 
built only on a discriminating and voluntary use of present 
opportunity. Give us, O Lord, our daily bread, and let us 
not feed the children with stones. 

The value of the motor side in all intellectual work has 
already been seen, but it is taken, for the most part, in an 
individualistic sense. The practice of teachers shows the 
result. They try to get some opportunity for the child to 
do something, and hit upon the profound device of reading 
aloud. Now surely his motor centers are being exercised ! 
Or, after the story is read, they ask for a reproduction in 
the words of the children, and make this a " language exer- 
cise " by jacking up the children's words to the standard 
of the book. They may ask one pupil to remember one 
section, the next another, and standing them in a row, 
jerkily unravel the yarn and wind it up. Or they may 
mystically suppose the child to have some undischarged 
emotion, and get him to express it in painting or write it 
out in the form of an exercise, repeating as much as pos- 
sible the story read. With the exception of the first 
device, these are called methods of giving back the story, 
and, if the teacher gets beyond the idea of mere memory 
training, are supposed to supply a motor reaction. 

Now why does the child read aloud ? I have asked sev- 
eral children, and they were surprised at the question. 
They thought it was obvious that they did so because the 
teacher told them to. A further reason came to some, 
namely, that the teacher wanted to see whether they could 
pronounce the hard words. Their attitude in both cases 

[214] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

was entirely passive. A few had a show-off feehng, and 
took it as a compliment to be asked to read, because it was 
a sign of the teacher's favor, placing them on a competitive 
eminence with their mates. It is obvious that in most class 
rooms children do not read aloud because they are in pos- 
session of some idea which they have derived from a book 
and wish to communicate it to some one else. This is, how- 
ever, the principal social basis for reading aloud, and is the 
reason any sane adult would have if he wished to read to 
any one else or any one else cared to listen to him. In 
school, on the contrary, the rest of the children are pro- 
vided with books, and have often prepared the lesson at 
home, while the teacher, of course, knows the story before- 
hand. There is no one to communicate any ideas to, and 
a spiritual vacuum necessarily results. 

It may be said that elocution remains, including here 
pronunciation of words, inflection, pauses, rhythm, quality 
of voice, the erect position, the book in the left hand, or 
even gestures. No doubt these do remain, and some 
teachers make the most of them, but they are abstract and 
artificial, without content or meaning back of them. It 
is practically impossible to make oral reading effective 
unless the reader is guided by a desire to communicate 
something of interest. In some way a real audience must 
be provided, if reading aloud is to be made a part of a 
reasonable and social education. 

The other devices above mentioned, consisting of giving 
back the story to the teacher, are also usually treated in 
an individualistic manner. With the possible exception, in 
some cases, of painting or drawing, the children have no 
direct and active interest in giving anybody anything 

[215] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

through their performance. There is no one to whom they 
desire to express anything. They would not go on with 
these things by themselves, and none of these actions will 
form habits likely to be sustained in later life. No adult, 
after he has read a story or an essay, is likely to sit down 
and reproduce it unless he has the intention of giving this 
reproduction to others who may be unable, or for whom it 
may be inconvenient, to read the material for themselves. 

It is plain that, so far as these so-called motor reactions 
are concerned, the child is not directing them and that they 
are not motor for him. He has no feeling that he is caus- 
ing anything. He is not experimenting. There is no social 
effect directly connected with what he is doing, which he 
can observe, correct, and thus shape nearer to his heart's 
desire. No eye is fastened upon him as he reads, greedy 
to hear the end of the story. The wandering glances of his 
classmates do not disturb him. No natural interjection is 
made, and at the close no voice is softened by emotion or 
alive with curiosity. The breathing is unaffected, and the 
funeral obsequies are conducted by the teacher alone. As 
for the further and larger experimenting which may be de- 
rived from the ideas of the matter read, this is, for the most 
part, supposed to belong to life and not to the school, and 
must be left to a vague hope in the future, or to what is 
sometimes called the individual conscience. 

Merely to change the outward appearance of such prac- 
tice, and to tell the child to read to his classmates while 
they close their books and listen, may not effect the results 
desired. The child may still not feel that he is causing any- 
thing, or making changes that are worth while in the minds 
of his fellows. This will almost certainly be the situation if 

[216] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

a story is read which the children have already looked over, 
while if one child reads one section of a new story and 
another reads the next, there will be a general lack of 
understanding and of synthesis.^ 

The ethical and moral thing to do for every one who 
reads to another is to grasp the idea to be expressed, and 
to judge whether it would interest or benefit the person 
who listens. With adults the general value of the idea may 
be very quickly seized, and sometimes without reading the 
whole piece. That it is on a certain subject, or written by 
a certain author, may be enough in some cases. The next 
thing the reader must be sure of is that his listener is dis- 
posed to receive the message. He then proceeds, if he is 
a good reader, to grasp the subordinate ideas which the 
author expresses to him. His eye sees them coming con- 
siderably ahead of the words he is actually pronouncing, 
and his mind is still further on, with a degree of expecta- 
tion, looking for the more important thoughts. 

Meanwhile his voice is delivering the ideas which he has 
previously grasped. The operation is like a ball game, in 
which the author throws one ball after another of varying 
size, while the reader throws them to the Hstener. He is 
careful of the large ones and handles them so that they 
may be caught. To do this the reader must evidently ob- 
serve his Hstener sufficiently to see what is happening, or 
even stop to inquire. This may seem complex, but it is 
probably not half so complex as what actually takes place. 

1 This will, of course, obtain to a greater extent in the higher grades. 
With the younger children the work done on every selection is greater ; it 
should therefore afford a more complete picture or idea, and yield an op- 
portunity of service done for the child who masters it and communicates 
its meaning to the class. 

[217] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 



1 



There is plainly enough in all this a training in judgment 
and ethics, but it is impossible to carry it out if it is not 
made a part of real, cooperative life processes conducted 
in the school. 

A few years ago the present writer took charge of a read- 
ing class of high-school juniors, and made an effort to see 
what could be accomplished in this direction. The pupils 
were invited to give their ideas of what could best be done, 
and to describe both aims and processes. The aims were 
at first, as might be expected, very abstract, where they did 
not result from an attempt to pose. Gradually, however, 
real desires made their appearance, and with these, common- 
sense efforts to carry them out. The pupils began rather 
early to bring into the class things that they had read with 
pleasure themselves, to ask the class if they cared to hear 
them, and, after a good deal of home preparation, to read 
them aloud, and to ask for criticism or comment. The 
teacher was in a position to give advice during the prepara- 
tion, and to join in the criticism at the close. It is needless 
to say that these functions were at first performed very 
gently indeed, in order not to frighten the pupils out of 
taking a full initiative themselves. Individual pupils fre- 
quently ran to specialties. One girl was always bringing in 
sentimental pieces, which she read with a great deal of feel- 
ing ; and, strange to say, this feeling was reciprocated by 
many of the pupils. I saw tears in some eyes during the 
reading of pieces which left my own heart untouched. I 
refrained from expressing my adult and presumably more 
cultivated feelings further than would be really welcomed 
by the class. One boy was a born humorist, and after the 
tears he occasionally set the class in a roar by some little 

[218] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

story which he had found perhaps in a newspaper, and 
which he told, and often acted, without reading. 

Every one came to have an ambition to read as if he 
were speaking to the rest. Instead of general criticism, 
the reader sometimes asked the class for the succession of 
images they had received, or for the ideas and images which 
they had found particularly interesting. Very soon a daily 
programme had to be prepared in order to economize time 
and get the best order of the pieces presented. 

After this degree of organization had appeared, some one 
proposed that where there were two or three persons rep- 
resented in the pieces read, these parts might be taken by 
different members of the class, rather than that the single 
reader should be first one person and then another. They 
frequently took pieces written in indirect discourse, and 
turned them into direct address. Indeed, this was often 
done by the single reader as he went along, if by doing so 
he thought he could get more into the spirit of the piece or 
give a more vivid impression to his hearers. Very soon dia- 
logue and dramas were brought in, one of the first I remem- 
ber being the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius. 
By this time home preparation did not seem sufficient, and 
they voted to give part of the time to preparation in the 
school. For this purpose they broke up into several groups 
in different rooms or hallways, and planned and rehearsed 
their various presentations. During this period the teacher 
was in great demand, going round among the groups and 
giving help and criticism. The most important technical 
problems were frequently broached, the dictionary was in 
constant service, and even books on elocution were not 
despised. 

[219] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 






Still later the pupils began to make stories for them 
selves from real life, and to read sketches or essays. These 
were not allowed, by the class as a whole, who had to listen 
to them, to occupy too large a share of the programme. Only 
the best survived. Some of these, however, were very good. 
One little dramatic sketch, which was impersonated by the 
author, and represented an experience which happened to 
him in a life-saving station, was particularly interesting and 
even romantic. In all this the teacher took part also, by 
presenting reading material which he thought would be 
interesting, and which he calculated would gradually raise 
the standard of the class. 

This experiment was satisfactory as far as it went, and it 
was quite plain that the young people, while they enjoyed 
their experience, never lost sight of the educational purpose 
of becoming better readers. Many who had never had such 
an idea before woke up to its value and pursued their am- 
bition with the greatest success. I say "as far as it went," 
because this reading class was not in such organic connec- 
tion with the rest of the school that life activities going on 
in the other classes could be related to the new ideas de- 
rived from either the authors read or from the social prac- 
tice of this class. That the pupils could read better and 
were a little more confident was perhaps the greatest value 
apparent in other classes. It was rather the life processes 
going on outside the school, in home and church and play- 
ground, that were most organically united with this work 
in reading. To get the best results the whole school should 
be allowed to organize on a social basis. The experiences 
of one class should be intimately connected with those of 
another, and the school itself should grow from the life of 

[ 220 ] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

1 
the community which surrounds it. This can never be done 

by correlating subjects on a course of study, or in any other 

way put in from the top. It is growth from the roots which 

will yield flowers and fruit. 

The experiment above described revealed other things 
than the powers of pupils to organize their own work. In- 
stead of sinking individuality, their social cooperation was 
the very thing which brought it out. True independence is 
always a result of, and follows rather than precedes, a stage 
of interdependence. Both are desirable in education, but 
one is fundamental, the other accessory. 

From the point of view of the individual reader, it was 
also brought out in the mutual criticisms of the class, that 
after he felt the most fundamental social relationship and 
was in control of the ideas to be delivered, the means neces- 
sary to carry out these prerequisites followed a certain natu- 
ral order. The voice, or the book in the left hand, was not 
found to be the most fundamental or controlling factor. 
That which governed the rest was the position and motion 
of the body. Instead of adding on the actions to the word, 
the first thing to be thought of, or rather felt, was the 
physical attitude and the actions themselves. In reading, 
as in real life, these bodily attitudes and actions precede 
the voice. They represent to the others and give to the 
reader the kinaesthetic and emotional experience of which 
the words are an accessory accompaniment. A person does 
not say, " Give me the book," and then proceed to supply 
appropriate gestures. He turns his head, directs his eyes, 
leans his body, and begins to stretch out his hand a little 
before the words are uttered. He no doubt begins to get 
the idea before these things happen, but this belongs more 

[221] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

to the receptive side of the process, and we are here con- 
sidering the art of dehvery or expression. If these funda- 
mental things are right, the words tend to take care of 
themselves, and to derive from the more passive bodily 
states the timbre, pitch, and melody which are suitable to 
the physical organism of the reader. A stereotyped posi- 
tion, such as standing erect with the heels together, ohM 
viously spoils the opportunity of natural expression, and 
indirectly prevents the reader from getting or giving the 
full meaning of what he is reading. When this mistake is 
once made (and this follows immediately from ignoring the 
social conditions of expression), there is nothing left for it 
but to supply stereotyped inflections, rhythms, and pauses, 
with other technique, imitated directly from the teacher. 
How often do we see children's natural grace of movement 
and the beautiful quaHty of their voices, which ought to 
be as different as the differences of their mental make-up 
and bodily structure, forced into elocutionary antics quite 
foreign to their real feelings or desires ! Because they are 
not dealing with realities in the children themselves, except 
to override them, teachers do not even express their own 
individuality, but imitate the forms they use from others. 
A mannerism of inflection will thus run like a disease of 
fashion through a whole city. When all are alike, it is 
supposed that every one must be right. 

With younger children, what adults would feel to be an 
excess of bodily expression is natural, and is to be expected 
if the social atmosphere is normal. Reading matter full of 
visual imagery and dramatic possibilities is most necessary 
for them. But with larger and deeper experience, the voice 
undertakes a larger share of the expression, and gestures 

[ 222 ] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

are checked. The significance of the whole paragraph, or 
of the whole speech, is more readily grasped, and its appli- 
cation to events and actions which lie beyond the present 
looms up larger in consciousness. The bodily attitude 
expresses a feeling of simple waiting for the point or 
denouement of the whole idea. Emphasis of tone, or force, 
is moderated. More work is laid on the higher processes 
of association and judgment. President EHot of Harvard 
is much admired by the present generation as a speaker, 
and rightly so. He hardly ever makes a gesture. His 
voice, although clear and confident, is almost level in its 
flow. Slight pauses and slight inflections form the princi- 
pal means of emphasis. But even this style of expression 
has not lost its dramatic implications. It is still controlled 
by the test of action. It is full of purpose and vibrant 
with endeavor. 

Reserved power is, however, the end and not the begin- 
ning. Immediate action and its consequences must be mas- 
tered first. Where these are capable of being controlled 
for social purposes, the more far-reaching effects may be 
experimented upon. It is needless to say that to imitate 
the mere form of a finished speaker is to satisfy ourselves 
with husks, and to prevent the development of a normal 
growth. 

The foregoing analysis of both the receptive and the 
active side of reading has already thrown some light on its 
higher development in literature. That only is literature 
which speaks to people's hearts, and which they care to 
read and hear. To label a collection of authors. Fine Lit- 
erature, and to apply this in small doses, suitable for rhe- 
torical or grammatical analysis and philological research, 

^ [223] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

is to dishearten pupils and to remind them of a drug store 
rather than of the pure Pierian spring or of a well of 
English undefiled. This is an attitude which is fortunately 
passing away in our best high schools and colleges, and 
teachers, much more than formerly, depend on reading to 
the pupils. The next step will be to allow pupils to read 
among themselves, and to exercise frequently their own 
admiration and their own choice in what they read to 
others and in what others read to them. 

As we have tried to show, reading and literature, to be 
of any service, must never get far away from the will or 
intention of those who read. It is also true that this 
expression must be a natural outcome of their emotions. 
What are the emotions which children experience, and 
which they suffer from when they are not controlled and 
educated ? 

Fear is certainly one. We have had some excellent 
studies of children's fears (3), but it would be hard to find 
much appreciation of these studies in our pedagogical prac- 
tice. And yet every tragedy is a record of a fear that is 
overcome. To guide the soul between fear and love was 
Aristotle's formula for education. Perfect love casteth out 
fear, says the New Testament, but the fear must exist in 
order to be cast out. Death, sin, hell, and the grave are 
symbols which stand for something. A Scotch preacher 
once told me that it was his frequent practice to "shake 
his hearers o'er the mouth o' hell" before picturing to 
them the saving grace of redeeming love. Some such 
emotional curve, although not always representing thoughts 
so primitive and crude, is to be found behind every sig- 
nificant human endeavor. To be aware of risks and to 

[224] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

appreciate them to the full is a sign of wisdom and a 
stimulus to true courage. 

On the other hand, to have fear and see no outcome, to 
be chronically afraid, expresses the depth of defeat. To be 
so cautious as to be afraid to stir or to take risks for worthy 
ends is a conservative attitude governed by a subconscious 
fear. To adopt the suggestion that there is no fear, no 
death, no evil, may be comfortable for the time, but it puts 
the realities of life a little further beyond one's personal 
control. Better the war song of the Norman as he rode 
along the ranks swinging his battle-ax in the air. 

If it is a law that love casts out fear, chronic fear is only 
a state of arrest, and the proper development of the situa- 
tion will result in happiness and power. We see this plainly 
in the tragedies of our great poets. But the small tragedies 
of children are often allowed to fester, and form points of 
departure for an organization of fear states which, although 
their origin may have been forgotten, keep on like " sunken 
bells " through the whole of their after life. Let us take 
the case of a little four-year-old girl who, when she went to 
bed, imagined all kinds of reptiles and other terrible crea- 
tures underneath the bed. Comforting words from her 
mother did no good. One night, however, the child imag- 
ined that four great lions stalked into the room. They took 
up their positions, one at each corner of the bed ; they 
fought off the reptiles, and the little girl fell peacefully 
asleep. The next night the lions came in earlier ; and with 
repetition the whole thing became a pleasant play, but not 
without the tang of fear from which it was derived. 

It is evident that we have here the making of a poem, 
a drama, for which nature had finally provided the missing 

[225] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 



1 



fifth act. When the chain of imagery is stopped in the 
middle, the spectator in the "private theater" is naturally 
disturbed. 

To educate and control children's imaginary fears, we 
must find the fifth act for them when they do not find it 
for themselves. Many children's stories do this more or 
less successfully. " Little Red Riding Hood " is a classic 
example. The wolf should be painted with all the suitable 
horrors gradually introduced in the most seductive manner. 
That it all turns out well in the end, although crudely from 
the adult standpoint, is the necessary feature of this kind 
of spiritual homeopathy. Children are bound to hear stories 
involving fear, and if they are not told them by the proper 
artists of their lives, they will get them from less worthy 
sources, and perhaps from persons who have a morbid 
pleasure in merely making them afraid. Why should not 
teachers make stories which should fit the experiences of 
the actual children to whom they are told ? The old myths 
are useful enough, but the modern child has new fears, — 
the streets, the trolley cars, stairs to fall down, failure at 
promotion, robbers, and automobiles are full of terrors 
which might well be provided with suitable myths. 

In a similar manner, every other emotion may acquire 
through literature its natural discharge. Let us not sup- 
pose that these emotions are issued by nature in job lots, 
and because we have a general name for anger, that every 
anger state is Hke every other. Probably no two cases of 
resentment are emotionally the same. A piece of literature 
or an idea that will touch the heart in one case may fail 
in another. The little girl above described needed just 
those four lions, or something else that would fit as exactly 

[226] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

into her fantasy. The power to read into the large dramas 
our own smaller ones comes later. At first we need more 
particular treatment. As Browning, with an application to 
his own poetry, says : 

What matter to me if their star is a world ? 

Mine has opened its soul to me ! therefore I love it. 

Teachers ought to be able to make stories that will fit par- 
ticular emotional situations closely similar to those actually 
experienced by their pupils. If they are unable to do this 
with a fair degree of success, is it likely that they will be 
competent to select wisely from the store of accredited lit- 
erature with which they may be familiar ? 

It may be said that teachers are not expected to select, 
— that this is done for them by their superiors. So much 
the worse for the children. The bread of life needs to be 
baked fresh if moldy crusts are not to take its place. So 
much the worse also for the teachers. Until teachers are 
able to control the work of their own profession, their life 
will be one of ineffectual martyrdom and discontent. 

But there is, fortunately enough, immense unused capac- 
ity among our teachers. Even although we load them like 
donkeys and drive them like mules, the Pegasus will still 
appear. There are thousands of teachers capable of free 
creative work, who are balked and discouraged by the 
formalism of dictatorial methods and by courses of study 
arbitrarily imposed from above. 

As a slight illustration of this, I may cite some work 
done by mere beginners in a city normal school. The 
problem was to write a story that would portray a situation 
in a child's life, painting the character so sympathetically 

[227] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

that the hearer would identify himself with the hero 
of the story ; and after this was done, and the arrested 
emotional stage clearly grasped, to lead the story up to 
a better and higher mode of thought and feeling. The 
following is a typical story, selected mainly on account of 
its brevity, and was designed for an eighth-grade class of 
boys. In a preliminary investigation it was discovered that 
about half of these boys had had, at one time or another, 
serious thoughts of running away from home, and that 
some of them had actually done so. 

Yes, it was just a month since Willie had run away from home. 
He had felt very happy when he had first joined the circus, but now, 
as he thought more of it day by day, he was sorry he had acted so 
unwisely. This is how it happened. 

Willie lived in a very cosy little house in a small village, with his 
parents, to whom he was very much attached. There he had dwelt 
happily for twelve whole years, and had had no cause for vexation, 
as every wish had been gratified. One day the circus came to the 
neighboring town, and a large party of boys, Willie's friends, had 
obtained permission to go to see it. As Willie desired to share this 
extraordinary pleasure, he soon acquainted his father with his wish. 
At first his parent saw no objection, but when he learned that the 
boys intended to go unaccompanied by an older person, he withdrew 
his consent, deciding that it would be far safer to keep Willie at home. 

Now the circus had planned to stay a week, and the boys had 
planned to go on the fifth day. When this day arrived the boys 
gathered together, ready for the journey. Eager anticipation for the 
great joys and surprises awaiting them were depicted on every coun- 
tenance. Willie sat at the window watching all the proceedings. 
He had felt bad when his father told him he could not go ; but now, 
as he saw the boys setting out on the way, it seemed as if his heart 
would break. 

He went to his own room, where he sat down and cried pitifully. 
Suddenly he roused himself, and, with a determined look on his face, 
began to search for something in the bureau drawer. After a while 
he drew out his hand, in which he held a small iron savings bank. 

[228] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

" Yes," he exclaimed aloud ; " this is enough to take me to the 
circus, and I can there earn enough to see the show and pay my 
way back. I shall start early to-morrow morning, before any one is 
awake, and I will be far away from here when they first discover 
that I have gone." 

With such thoughts as these Willie's mind was filled, until he 
finally closed his eyes in sleep. His sleep, however, was not in the 
least refreshing : strange, he was continually troubled by the thought 
that his parents would be very anxious and worried by his absence. 
But he put this thought aside, saying : " What do they care about 
me ? If they thought very much of me, they would let me go to the 
circus, as the other boys' parents did. They ought to be glad to 
think that I am enjoying myself." 

The following morning Willie rose bright and early, ready for 
his journey. He slipped quietly downstairs, took his hat from the 
hook, and was off. Reaching the railway station, he took the train 
to town. 

He arrived just at the time when the circus manager was opening 
up for the day. Willie stood watching him for a while, hoping to get 
a glimpse of the interior of the tent. Seeing the little boy standing 
there and taking in all the proceedings, the manager called to him. 
Willie approached timidly. Had this great man, who owned so many 
wonderful animals and could do so many tricks, condescended to 
speak first to a strange boy ? When near enough to him, the mana- 
ger asked him several questions as to his name, where he came from, 
and what he intended to do. Willie answered him truthfully, and 
then waited for the great man to speak again. He did not open his 
lips for a moment, then suddenly he asked, " Willie, would you like 
to join the circus ? " 

Nothing could have been more unexpected than this question, 
and Willie was so surprised that he stood for a moment dumb- 
founded. Was this man actually going to let him see the circus for 
nothing, and also travel with it from place to place about the world ? 
It really seemed impossible. Could he have heard rightly ? perhaps 
not. This last question was not left long unanswered. 

"Willie," repeated the manager, who had taken a noticeable inter- 
est in the boy ; " would you like to join the circus ? " 

WilHe did not now hesitate a moment to reply, " Certainly, sir." 

"Very well," continued the manager ; " follow me." 

[ 229 ] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 






Willie did so, and soon found himself amid the various great 
attractions of the circus he had so desired to see. 

He passed up and down before the cages containing gigantic ani- 
mals and curious birds, — elephants, giraffes, hons, tigers, ostriches, 
etc. With the few pennies he had left, he bought peanuts and amused 
himself by feeding the monkeys. Later he saw the clown making 
the dogs do tricks and jump through rings, and also the celebrated 
bareback rider. 

His first day passed very quickly, and Willie was not required to 
do any work. But as the days passed on, he was asked to do more 
and more. At the end of three weeks he had a considerable amount 
of work to do, which kept him busy from early morning until late at 
night. He was obliged to clean out the cages of the animals, and 
bring them food and fresh water. 

The worst part of all was that nobody took any notice of him, and 
he was knocked about as if he were a strange dog whom nobody 
cared for, and who was really in the way. 

As a result, he had not much time for sleep, and when that time 
did come, he could not sleep. His thoughts constantly went back to 
his home and his parents. How they must have missed him, — how 
lonesome they must have been without him, — how they had longed 
to have him come home. But it had all been in vain, for Willie did 
not return. He saw his mother weeping silently as she busied her- 
self with the housework, and his father, too, had a careworn expres- 
sion on his face. How he would like to be at home ! Once there he 
would never run away again. 

But how could he return ? The manager kept a pretty strict watch 
over him, and did not allow him out of his sight for one moment, for 
he knew that Willie would be of great assistance to him as he grew 
older. Besides this, the boy was a patient and faithful worker. And 
yet Willie felt that he must free himself. But how was he to do it ? 
This question was the most difficult to answer. 

Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder, and some one was shak- 
ing him gently. He opened his eyes, and beheld his mother looking 
down at him. 

" Well, Willie," she exclaimed ; " I had called you three times 
already, but as you did not answer, I came to wake you. Hurry up, 
or you will be late for school." 

[230] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

Could it be possible that he was really at home and in his own 
room, lying on his soft little bed ? He put out his hand to reas- 
sure himself that he was truly awake. Yes, it was just so, and he 
had only been dreaming after all. How glad he was to be at home 
again with his dear parents. No, he would not mind staying at home 
on Friday, when the other boys went to the circus. His father knew 
best ; and besides, after that terrible dream, he would never venture 
alone to the circus, for that might lead to the realization of the 
dream itself. 

But it is not enough for a satisfactory social develop- 
ment that teachers learn to interpret children at first hand, 
and in doing so, learn to free their own personality for this 
purpose. The children must learn to interpret themselves 
to each other. They can do this only when they produce 
for each other. This is the law of spoken language, and it 
is equally valid for that which is written or printed. In 
fact, unless the teacher is in contact with children who 
are producing for each other, it will be very difficult and 
perhaps impossible for him either to catch the method 
or understand the matter which is best suited to their 
mental level. To ask children to write an imaginary letter 
for an imaginary situation, or even to write to mother 
or grandmother, is not so exhilarating nor so capable of 
being controlled by the writer himself as if he wrote to 
people on his own plane. He is then in a position to get 
the kind of criticism that comes from seeing how the 
others take his production, — whether it has been of serv- 
ice to them, interests them, arouses their admiration, or 
calls for their friendly help or correction. In no other 
way, moreover, can the teacher be sure that the truths 
she would fain inculcate have actually entered into the 
life processes of the pupils. 

[231] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 



I 



Children are, of course, very ready to do this. They 
often do it by surreptitious note writing, without the 
teacher's approval. But they are still more willing to write 
for each other with the help of the teacher, and with 
worthier aims. Examples of this practice can be found 
under our best teachers and in a few of our schools. The 
Ethical Culture School of New York organizes some of 
its reading exercises on what the children write. Both the 
Francis Parker School in Chicago, under Miss Cook's lead- 
ership, and the University Elementary School carry still 
further the development of the children's own activity. 
Under Miss Martha Fleming the original dramatic work 
of the children reaches a very high degree of excellence. 
Often one section of the class, or one whole class, forms a 
group to write something for the other section or class to 
read. This is more effective morally, and in the other 
results gained, than when each child writes by himself. 
The two following examples of this kind of work, the 
first from Miss Port's class (second grade), the second 
from Miss Wygant's (first grade), both of the University 
Elementary School, will serve as examples. The first 
lesson runs on aesthetic lines ; the second is more scien- 
tific and practical, and represents actual work the children 
had done. In both cases they were telling about their own 
experiences to a real audience. 

(0 

On Thursday, November 3, we went to Beverly Hills. At ten min- 
utes of 9 we crossed the Midway, and went on the street cars to 
Englewood. We had to wait until a quarter of ten for the train. 
We were on the train about fifteen minutes. 

On the train Denison saw men making a new park. 

Geraldine saw seven cows. 

[232] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

Elizabeth saw some pigeons walking around a pigeon house. 

Dent saw a flock of birds flying south. 

Lanning saw a wagon of corn. 

Denison saw some corn that had not been cut down. 

Beatrice Lovett saw cornfields where the corn was stacked like 
tents. 

Meredith and Miss Port saw a field of cabbages. 

Lanning saw a man plowing. 

Paul saw many pumpkins in a store. 

Mary saw some ducks. 

When we got off the train the air was clear and fresh and breezy. 
It seemed like the country. We walked and ran and screamed. We 
saw a pond of water and a burro. We wanted to find snakes and 
frogs in a pond. But we had to go on. 

Miss Port said it was too far to go to the farm. We were disap- 
pointed, but we had just as good a time in the woods. 

The woods were beautiful and quiet, and there was not a house 
near by. There were oak trees and the leaves were brown and yellow. 
We found some red leaves. The oak leaves rustled in the trees. 
Many came floating and whirling down. Some fluttered down. The 
ground was covered with dry, brown leaves. 

We had a leaf fight. Then we covered Mrs. Thomsen with leaves. 
We said, " Where is Mrs. Thomsen ? " and up she jumped. Then we 
covered Miss Port. Some children climbed trees and shook the 
leaves down. 

After a while we took a walk. We found another pond. We 
think it was an old milldam. We ran down the old logs. We played 
a long time. Then we wanted a drink. Six of us went to a farm for 
water. Before we got any water, the woman told us to be careful in 
the pasture. We said, " Why ? " She said there was a wild bull in 
the pasture. We ran for the woods again. 

We ate our lunch in the woods. We wanted water all the time. 
Next time we are going to take bottles of water with us. While we 
were eating our lunch some bees came to see us. One bee stung 
Gordon on the finger. 

After lunch we played games and told stories. We saw a man 
with a gun. We told him about the wild bull, and he said he would 
have to shoot him. But we think he was just fooling. 

At 2 o'clock we started for home. We had a good time. 

[233] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

(2) 

We went hunting. 

We did not take a gun. 

We took acid. 

Guess what we were hunting for. 

We found it in marble and in limestone. 

We found it in bones, shells, and chalk. 

We found it in lake water. 

We found it in the soil in our school yard. 

" Lime seems to be in a great many places," said Charles. 

Work of this kind is being done by Miss Nelson of the 
Pierce School, Brookline, and by Miss Shaw of the Wells 
School, Boston, although in these schools the work tends 
to the production of plays which are acted by the pupils. 
The following was written by an eleven-year-old pupil of 
Miss Shaw. It was her own doll that the little girl had 
in mind. She put in the grandmother, not because she had 
one, but, as she said, because she wished she had. Spelling 
and punctuation and arrangement are those of the author 
of the play. 

PATSY AND LAURA 
Scene (i) Conversation between Patsy and Laura. 

(Patsy) I wonder where Laura is, I hope she will come. 

(Laura) Here I am Patsy ready to play with you. I brought 

Celia with me. 

(Patsy) Oh there she is with that horrid old doll again. I 

know your mother bought that doll in the Five and 
Ten cent store. My pretty Anna came from Paris. 

(Laura) My Celia looks just as pretty as your Anna. 

(Patsy) Now don't you say that any more Laura. You know 

very well that Anna is far prettier than Celia. Can't 
you see her beautiful head and curling hair and such 
pretty eyes and the lovely clothes my grandma makes 
for her. 

[234] 



READING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE 

(Laura) You know, Patsy, that my mama is very feeble, she 

cannot even sew as well as your grandma. 

(Patsy) Come here Laura I'll tell you something. We'll 

run off to my grandma and ask her to make Celia 
some clothes. 

(Laura) Oh that's delightful Let us go right away. 

Scene (2) Grandmother in sitting room. 

(Patsy) Grandma } 

(Grandmother) What my little dears what ? 

(Patsy) I want to ask you if you will make some clothes for 

Laura's doll. 
(Grandmother) Of course I will I'll begin right off. Hand me 

your doll Laura. Why Laura is that your doll. 

Well, well, well, I should think you need another 

one. Here's one my dear. 
(Laura) Oh thank you ever so much. 

(Grandmother) Now there will be no quarreling both the dolls are 

the same. Run off and play together. Now both of 

them are jolly. Oh ! how short the time is. I hear 

the bell calling me to dinner. I must leave my work 

and go. 

This little play is well worth close analysis. One thing, 
at least, stands out, namely, that the larger controlling 
features are better managed than the lesser consistencies. 

These few cases are perhaps sufficient to show the direc- 
tion in which the teaching of reading must necessarily ad- 
vance. The main clew likely to lead to future progress is 
a further study of spoken language. In following this, it is 
easily seen that the most important condition of both spoken 
and written language is their service in social relationships. 
Both are merely means of communication, and thus must 
constantly and steadily be used as such by the children 
themselves, if either satisfactory technique or understand- 
ing is to be looked for. The business of the teacher is not 

[235] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

so much to drill and lesson the children as to help them to 
organize themselves socially, to stimulate a flow of honor 
feelings from one to another, and to give each a chance to 
make and unmake the habit and opinion of his fellows. 

References 

1. Donovan, The Festal Origin of Human Speech, Mind, 
Vol. XVI, October, 1891. 

2. Henry D. Lloyd, Man the Social Creator, New York, 1906. 

3. G. Stanley Hall, Children's Fears, American Journal of 
Psychology, Vol. VIII. 



[236] 



CHAPTER X 

MANUAL ARTS : INDUSTRIAL AND CONSTRUCTIVE 

WORK 

It may safely be said that manual arts are more funda- 
mental to the development of humanity than even the 
power to read and write. They have, nevertheless, been 
tardily recognized on the programmes of modern schools. 
Many a so-called " safe " educator is still gazing mildly at 
them, when he is not actually hostile. The reason of this 
belated recognition is not far to seek. The school began 
as an accessory to real life, and was limited at first to the 
accessory classes of the community. The aristocratic feudal 
education despised work. Education, to quote Spencer's 
phrase, was largely ornamental, and the main virtue to 
be inculcated under the ornament was obedience of either 
a military or a monastic order. Later on, when people's 
schools were started, as in New England, elementary man- 
ual arts were already taught at home. To-day the high 
specialization of modern labor makes it impossible to teach 
these fundamental life activities and the morals that guide 
them, except in schools. Even the apprentice system has 
disappeared. 

The apperceptive masses of commonplace educators, as 
this condition is forced upon them, assimilate these new 
studies to the old ones, with which the pedagogic mind is 
more familiar. Manual training is organized as a subject, 

[237] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 



1 



as much like previous subjects as possible. Paradigms in 
joints are substituted for those in Latin. Even the declen- 
sions have their analogues in painfully graded exercises in 
wood or metal. But military obedience is thereby saved, 
examinations are still possible, courses of study can be 
made, the ordinary " culture " and the ordinary discipline, 
although manifestly in reduced circumstances, continue to 
pay their calls. This blindness and this narrowness is 
sometimes called a compromise. 

Many pupils seize the essentials in spite of the form, but 
others are disheartened. Mr, H. D. Lloyd's notion, that 
because boys from different homes work together at the 
same bench they will therefore honor labor and love their 
comrades, is not so true as we could wish. Whether they 
will or not, depends on why they are working, and whether 
they have realized that comradeship is help, either given or 
received. Why are they working ? Is it to produce ideas ? 
The joy of the artist in his work is the spring of all satis- 
factory labor. The essence of this is the idea which he is 
producing. But however useful in its place, the analogy 
of the highly developed artist, such as the painter, is fre- 
quently a stumbling-block. In his case the ideas to be real- 
ized are largely within his personal control. Ideas in the 
ordinary manual arts, on the contrary, are realized by 
cooperation and the division of labor. The magnitude of 
the work demands it. What becomes, then, of the artistic 
and creative intelligence of the individual laborer ? Is he 
not forced to work at a part in obedience to the orders 
of others ? 

This is certainly what results when the laborer is not 
educated. But is it not precisely to overcome this economic 

[ 238 ] 



MANUAL ARTS 

and ethical defect that our schools for manual training are 
established ? Why, then, should they repeat the artistic 
and social faults of uneducated labor ? Why should pupils 
be asked to do work which does not spring from their 
own minds as a result of their productive and creative 
imagination ? 

The reason for this is near at hand. It is not seen that 
productive and creative work, when it is large enough to 
require many hands, requires also a social organization to 
carry it out. This social organization is a tool more impor- 
tant than planes or chisels. Pupils should be trained in its 
creation and its use as much as and even more than they 
are trained in the use of any material tool. To make or 
help to make a serviceable social organization, in order to 
produce results in iron, wood, or clay, is itself a work of 
art. But unfortunately, instead of training pupils in social 
organization, most teachers borrow second-hand the crude 
organization of the past labor world, descended as it is 
from military and feudal times, and still maintained and 
multiplied by modern oppression. They accept it as a 
necessity, use it bHndly, and, without intending to do so, 
pass on to their pupils its unchristian practice and its 
worn-out philosophy. 

The present labor world is becoming wiser. It is begin- 
ning to understand, in a certain dim way, that conscious 
social organization is imperative. Workmen are uniting all 
over the world. The immediate purpose is to protect their 
jobs and increase their wages. The more remote purpose 
is somewhat vague. Many look to a reconstruction of 
society along socialistic lines. This is the old a priori dis- 
ease, and consists in picturing an accomplished state of 

[239] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

affairs, although remote and inaccessible, in order to get 
the easy opportunity of making deductions. To obtain con- 
trol of the tools of production is admittedly the logical aim 
of those who work. But what are the tools of production, 
and who are those who work ? Social organization is the 
principal tool, and all who work on this are genuine work- 
men. It is not practical to assume an ideal, and therefore 
an a priori societary tool. Numerous experiments in all 
walks of life are necessary in producing such tools, in order 
that growth and selection may give increasing control. Sud- 
denly inject the socialistic state — and who could run it.-* 
Cooperation in smaller groups is more feasible, followed by 
natural federation into large protective unions. 

This cooperation, however, must be a cooperation of ideas 
and of life. Production is for the sake of consumption. 
Man as a producer is not exploited any more viciously than 
man as a consumer. In the latter role he is robbed and 
fooled at every turn, and rarely gets what he wants. Inar- 
tistic consumption is just as bad as inartistic work. Art for 
art's sake, or work for work's sake, are both quite mis- 
leading. The artist and the worker have joy in their work 
only when they feel that they are producing with and for 
those with whom they are united in social bonds, and to 
whom they look for love, admiration, honor. The social 
organization that workers need is one that definitely 
includes consumers. 

How this is to be worked out on the large scale of an 
adult society is not our immediate concern. Helpful be- 
ginnings, however, are made in various places. Municipali- 
zation or communization of various economic functions, 
although far from fully social, have already shown their 

[240] 



MANUAL ARTS 

right to live. But education must not wait till things are 
already accomplished. That education is comparatively in- 
effectual which merely imitates the existing state of society, 
and aims to bring up the young for nothing better than to 
fit in, more or less exactly, to given conditions. Present 
conditions are always dying out, and if we begin, ten years 
before his graduation, to fit a boy for his particular niche, 
the particular niche may meanwhile disappear. To what an 
enormous extent has the whole industrial business and pro- 
fessional world changed in the last few years ! To be practi- 
cally efficient, education must lead as well as follow. It 
can never divest itself of the function of assisting in the 
creation of society. 

The school is, above all, an embryonic community which, 
although simpler and more generalized, forms the key to 
the adult community of citizens into which it is to grow. 
Municipalization and other social aims must be partly 
worked out in the schools before they can reach any great 
ethical depth in the community as a whole. To prevent the 
full realization of the cooperative spirit of the social embryo 
is to malform and degenerate that which should result from 
it. Mere intellectual knowledge of civics, customs of vot- 
ing, etc., will never nourish the soul of youth, unless this 
knowledge is experimented with and proved to be a power 
in gaining results actually wished for by the pupils them- 
selves. For this kind of experimenting there is no better op- 
portunity than is afforded in manual training and industrial 
work. Here results are concrete and objective, even to 
the dullest mind. This we see clearly from the individual 
standpoint and in appHcation to the mere material worked 
with. To the social point of view we are strangely bHnd. 

[241] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

Children themselves are not so blind in this respect as 
most of their teachers are for them. When they want to 
do a thing of any complexity or magnitude, they naturally 
look for help among their comrades and such adults as they 
can interest. They size up the fitness of these different in- 
dividuals with considerable accuracy, and select them to 
perform different functions in the group which is thus 
created. If they do not succeed perfectly at first, they 
learn rapidly by experience. They instinctively rely on the 
specialists among them, who have shown their capacity in 
different directions. 

A superficial observer of children's activities is accus- 
tomed to think that children work and play just to be 
together, and have no particular interest in what they pro- 
duce. This is partly true of a certain class of activities, but 
there are others where the thing produced is the key to the 
situation. Whoever has seen children building a house, for 
example, ought to have observed that cooperation and divi- 
sion of labor, social organization, selection, and leadership 
were used as means and tools, largely for the sake of the 
product which all were to enjoy. That such work is not 
conducted wholly for the product and its future use, but 
partly for the enjoyment of the process also, is, however, a 
factor which is most important, and one which would solve 
many of our labor dif^culties if the adult world could be 
brought to understand and use it. 

The process at work is not simply the exhilaration of 
physical exercise. It is much more the social touch and 
comradeship of group activity. It depends upon selection 
for its effectiveness. A mere heterogeneous crowd will not 
undertake such work unless compelled. Those who have 

[ 242 ] 



MANUAL ARTS 

sufficient mutual liking, confidence, or admiration to enable 
them to overlook slight disagreements are the only units 
out of which free social organization can arise. This carries 
with it the necessity to exclude for the time being (and 
with all friendliness) others who do not fit in with the 
genius of the enterprise. The effectiveness of the group 
is tested, in the first place, by its power to hold itself to- 
gether. It is, as a consequence of this, that it can produce 
satisfactory results. 

When children spontaneously organize in this way, why 
do our manual training schools and manual arts courses fail 
to recognize and enlarge these truly human and productive 
powers ? To utilize them successfully would help on a 
twentieth-century renaissance which would far outshine 
the renaissance of the Middle Ages. To put the whole 
workman into the work always leads to the most produc- 
tive ends. To increase the practical understanding of such 
cooperative work is one of the best services of social educa- 
tion to the adult community as well as to the young, and 
as it permeates the whole of society, it will slowly mitigate 
the present crude and tyrannical practice, where too much 
work is done without joy, without honor, and without 
responsibility. 

Let us look at the question for a moment from the phys- 
iological side. To train the hand as an organ of the indi- 
vidual brain, to show that the motor regions of the cortex 
are necessary to vital thinking, is a solid advance for the 
theory of manual arts, but these considerations are con- 
cerned at present primarily with individual mechanism, and 
omit important aspects of this. The special social regions 
of the brain, the language centers, the directive centers of 

[ 243 ] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

the frontal lobes (if Flechsig's localizations be admitted), 
are equally important for the individual regarded as a unit, 
while for the individual regarded as a member of society 
they are absolutely necessary. It is the brain as a whole 
that must be trained, and this cannot well be done if the 
various functions are severally stimulated, first one and 
then another, but without definitely recognizing their power 
to associate, — a power that can never be gained without a 
normal and natural social environment. 

Why should this largest and controlling work in brain 
building be left to chance, to unreasoned pedagogic habit, 
or to a comfortable hope in the future ? To expect pupils 
to combine powers in later life which have been separately 
polished in school is like handing them the parts of a deli- 
cate machine whose function is unknown, and wondering 
why they do not put these parts together. The result is 
that thousands sell single parts to others, who build mis- 
shapen machines to suit themselves. To teach the pupil 
to be the bench assembler of his own brain capacities will 
not prevent, but will necessitate, his dovetailing in his own 
mechanism to that of others ; and to allow him to dovetail 
socially is the only way of teaching him to assemble indi- 
vidually. Resourcefulness, initiative, and gumption are 
social powers, and can never be cultivated alone. Without 
them mere manual skill is largely wasted. 

In earlier chapters we have already described several 
cases of self-organized group work as applied to manual 
training in the schools. In fact, children select work of 
this kind in much larger proportion than adult-made cur- 
ricula are usually willing to recognize. If the courses of 
study were made more largely by children themselves, we 

[244] 



MANUAL ARTS 

should find a great increase of industrial and constructive 
work immediately appearing in the schools. For this there 
is both an instinctive and an intellectual reason on their 
part. Children are more motor-minded than adults, in the 
sense that they have a more pressing need for the immedi- 
ate motor realization of their ideas. 

But there is, perhaps, a deeper reason. Children are sur- 
rounded by a world which they dp not understand, and 
they differ from some adults in that they usually realize 
this and make attempts to penetrate it. They see around 
them all kinds of industrial activity, railroading, bridge 
building, house building, road making, dressmaking, cook- 
ing, etc. These haunt their imagination. Children cannot 
look upon them passively until they understand them to 
the depth that their mental capacity will allow. How is 
it that a wagon runs, or that a fire is made } There is no 
answer to such questions until it comes through the expe- 
rience of controlling action. The child must experiment to 
know. In this work the main difficulty that the child strives 
to overcome is one of synthesis. The various details are 
seen, but they are intellectually scattered until they are 
united by actual construction. At the beginning the child's 
point of view is not to make things exactly like the objects 
that he sees, and serviceable from our adult standpoint. 
His production is serviceable to him, if it unites for him in 
his own mind and in the minds of those on his own level 
the features in the adult production which he has been 
able to observe. 

In accordance with this need to synthesize, manual 
training and the industrial arts begin in the young child's 
mind as a kind of dramatizing. The nature of this may be 

[ 245 ] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

illustrated by a case which is principally dramatizing, and 
gives but indications of material construction. A little girl 
who had just begun to go to school carried a number of 
buttons in her pocket. There were a number of little 
smooth white ones and one big black bristly one. These 
she occasionally took out and arranged to represent the 
scholars and the teacher in her school, supplying the con- 
versation and the proper climaxes as she went along. This 
varied from time to time. There was no single drama. 
What use were the buttons } Simply to keep her mind 
from wandering. When she got through with the cross 
words of the bristly one and the chain of images connected 
therewith, she was confronted by the chance of a fatal gap 
and the possibility of losing the whole thread of her per- 
formance. But when the little buttons stood patiently 
ready she could wait with safety for them to remind her 
of the next step. 

Grown people use similar devices. Train dispatchers 
frequently provide themselves with models of cars and 
engines, which they arrange over the floor of a room just 
as the trains are to be found at any given moment through- 
out the division. Von Moltke is said to have had, during 
the war of 1 870-1871, a room representing France and 
Germany, and covered with toy battalions placed exactly 
as described by the latest dispatches from the field. The 
handful of buttons is really a simple piece of material 
construction, and shows the germ of all more elaborate 
manufacture. 

Indeed, all our complicated industries are but means of 
enhancing life, and are useful only as they help us to syn- 
thesize our thought or feeling. With a pen, a table, a book, 

[ 246 ] 



MANUAL ARTS 

a chair, proper clothes, and a roof over one's head, feehngs 
and thoughts are less discontinuous, and one's image of 
life becomes more satisfactory and complete. It is in order 
to get these results that we take the trouble to reconstruct 
the material world, and build bridges, railroads, steamboats, 
houses, looms, and printing presses. Our thoughts and 
feelings are pragmatically measured by what they accom- 
plish in yielding us all larger, more consistent, more social, 
more attractive and lovely thoughts and feelings. Von 
Moltke was not only dramatizing his toy battahons, he 
was reconstructing Europe. In the same way the child 
was attempting to reconstruct her world with her buttons 
and her drama, and was doubtless succeeding in doing it. 

To recover constructive work for the soul is the only 
way to make it educative or even practical ; and it is the 
only way to make it serve the progress of the labor world. 
No one cares to construct just for the sake of constructing, 
although it is the curse of uneducated labor to be forced in 
large measure to do so. Material construction must be felt 
to be a part of the construction of life in order to give it 
human value. 

As a step to this human value, dramatizing is a great, if 
not a necessary, feature. Dramatizing is, after all, only a 
kind of concrete and creative planning, which prepares the 
way for real action. It moreover always emphasizes the 
social aspects of the plan, and often gives an opportunity 
for other individuals actually to take part. It is natural for 
children to begin their constructive efforts, as applied to 
material, within the circle of their social relationships, and 
to produce either for an actual, or, more frequently, for a 
dramatized social need. 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

In working out these schemes children are not usually 
in a position to have adults make models to help them defi- 
nitely in the construction which they most wish to under- 
stand. They must, therefore, make their own. There is, 
however, a further reason. Children have an immediate 
desire to construct for themselves. Simple dramatizing, 
with the weight on personal relationships, begins to develop 
into an interest in the structure itself. A small child will 
accept a toy wagon ready-made, and dramatize social rela- 
tions with it. Later on, he wants to know how it is made, 
and will prefer to make one for himself. This interest in 
structure is definitely related to the dramatizing instinct, 
and is indeed an offshoot of it. In thinking out the struc- 
ture, the child thinks of its parts as he thinks of the per- 
sons in a play. The spoke will do this, the axle that, — 
will play this or that part, as our idiom unconsciously 
expresses it. His need now is to synthesize all these parts 
and make of them a working whole. Just what are the 
features that make them work together ? Is it the exact 
length } Is it the red paint, or what .•* To gain a concep- 
tion of what a wagon is essentially, he sees that his actors 
in the drama do not need to be exactly and painfully 
imitated. Nor, on the other hand, do superficial imi- 
tations satisfy him. Cardboard wagons, for example, leave 
out just the essential thing he wants to get, and do not 
give him the slightest help in real construction, although 
they may be useful in other kinds of dramatizing. Mere 
analysis is not sufficient. He may take the wagon to 
pieces and have no good idea of how to put it together, 
or even if he succeeds in doing this, he has not learned 
the essential characteristics of the various parts, and the 

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MANUAL ARTS 

limits within which they may vary and still accomplish 
the purpose. 

The thing he wants to do, and needs to do at this stage, 
is to make a translation of the original wagon which he 
desires to understand. This requires some resourcefulness, 
some invention, some imagination. He must choose such 
material as he thinks will do, and he will naturally lighten 
his task by omitting the features which are not, in his 
expectation, quite essential. His mental process is a kind 
of reasoning, partly inductive and partly deductive. He 
builds a working hypothesis as to how the wagon works, 
and proceeds to verify it by making the wagon. 

While dramatizing that involves only persons thus runs 
into and gives rise to construction of material, it rarely, if 
ever, does so without retaining a real connection with its 
offspring, — a sort of umbilical cord which feeds the new 
tendency. The wagon is made not merely for the wagon's 
sake or in order to understand the method of manufacture, 
but for a wider purpose of some kind. The child thinks 
how fine it will be to use it in this way or that. He invents 
all sorts of situations where the wagon will be the hero of 
the play. In doing this he constantly has other persons in 
mind, and this larger drama feeds his ambitions and gives 
deeper social motive to his work. Many manual training 
courses cut the umbilical cord and destroy the social motive, 
though it is encouraging to note that this is becoming less 
and less the rule. 

In cases where the natural social motive has been 
removed, the prescribed course of study and the ready- 
made teacher attempt to substitute some other motive. 
They say practically to the child, " You must do this work 

[249] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

because it will be useful to you in your adult life." Unless 
the child is capable of reflecting on his coming duties as a 
father of a family and a citizen of the community, he does 
not get the full force of this counsel. In fact, he gets so 
little of it that no teacher would ever think of such a motive 
as self-sustaining. It is, after all, the here and now that 
gives fundamental and self-sustaining motives to the child. 
The hope of immortality in the Valhalla of the grown-ups 
is not sufficient for his needs. No child really desiring to 
make a wagon has any motive referring to adult life except 
as a remote accessory to others. The teacher therefore 
backs this up by the hope of promotion to the next grade, 
and, as a step to this, perhaps a mark, or, at least, approval 
for the day. 

This is what the so-called practical teacher does, and 
having done so, he is supposed to get the child " interested " 
in his work. Tremendous intellectual contortions are per- 
formed to show how this may be done, and the outcome is 
far from satisfactory. A much pleasanter and more effect- 
ive role awaits the teacher who can see that what is needed 
is to turn the thing around, and half the time, at least, to 
allow the child to interest him. 

Even where teachers realize that it is good for children 
to have some use for the things they make, they frequently 
invent this use for them. Something altruistic, from the 
teacher's standpoint, is frequently chosen. " Let us all 
make ironing boards for our mothers, and you can take 
them home, and your mothers will be so proud of them." 
Bookcases, paper knives, pencil holders, etc., go to supply 
an imaginary demand. The child often knows beforehand 
that there is no real wish for these things. But the high, 

[250] 



MANUAL ARTS 

ethical motive of self-sacrifice does not need to inquire. 
"Don't tell till you have it all done; it will be such a 
surprise." 

Admit cooperation and the production of individual 
ideas, and we have quite a different state of affairs. The 
child no longer wastes his work. He takes the consumers 
into account, and he is likely to be one of the consumers 
himself. But he is not selfish. He shares his work product, 
and he looks forward to doing so, although the sharing is 
largely with those on his own level. Two boys may make 
a wagon together, or a sled, and reap the advantages of 
division of labor and rapid execution. In these cases they 
look forward to a common use, and it is this which guides 
the production. They produce together because they have 
confidence enough in each other to think of sharing. But 
while two boys in a room of fifty may cooperate in this 
way, it will never happen that two more, and two more, 
will do so until the fifty are exhausted. Confidence is not 
so mathematical as that, nor do all happen to want sleds 
or wagons at the same time. 

If individual interest is to be maintained and a natural 
ethical spirit developed, production must be organized in 
relation to consumption. There will be all kinds of pur- 
poses relating to production and consumption in the minds 
of fifty children. It is simply a matter of foresight on their 
part to see what can actually be accomplished. It is at this 
point that full discussion and estimation of consequences 
is most valuable. Here the teacher can help through his 
greater experience. Such discussion is, in reality, a kind 
of preliminary acting-out, and during its course some of 
the things first desired are seen to be unsatisfactory, 

[251] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

intrinsically or because of the circumstances. The foresight 
gained by mutual discussion limits the things desired, and 
leaves over a number of more practicable plans. The dis- 
cussion also leads to better cooperation. New confidences 
in one another are awakened by the attitude taken and the 
knowledge revealed during the planning stage. The case 
already described (p. 131) where a third and fourth grade 
united to build a house and to decorate and furnish it 
shows all these stages in full activity. 

It may be pointed out, however, that such a wide degree 
of confidence and organizing capacity cannot always happen, 
nor is it to be expected. Indeed, where the class divides 
into a number of groups there is frequently a more intense 
cooperation and a more easily managed kind of organiza- 
tion. A large variety in the products to be consumed, with 
the consequent variety in the organizations which produce 
them, is not lost upon the children. They compare the 
different products, and borrow good features of group or- 
ganization from each other. It is difficult to say whether 
they get most out of the large scheme of organization which 
definitely involves the whole class, or out of the multiplica- 
tion of smaller groups. Both are useful where they are 
real, and have been invented to further real desires of the 
children themselves. 

Constructive work, manual training, and industrial work, 
as these are understood in the schools, naturally raise the 
question of vocational or continuation schools. These already 
exist for the more favored classes as technical and profes- 
sional schools, and it is one of the most glaring injustices 
of our educational system that they are not also provided 
for those classes of the community which have naturally 

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MANUAL ARTS 

the most difficulty in making their way in Hfe. The 
lack of such schools, even on the basis of our present 
coercive industrial organization, results in enormous waste 
in production. 

As a recent report of the Massachusetts Industrial 
Commission shows, the work of boys and girls from four- 
teen to sixteen years of age is worth so little, and is so 
poorly paid, that those who work during this period actually 
earn less before they are twenty, and much less before they 
are thirty, despite their two extra years of labor, than do 
those who are better prepared. Although selection of those 
who are most fit by nature may contribute to this result, it 
does not seem unreasonable to assume that skill and habits 
gained by proper preparation play the greater part. Trade 
schools that succeed most emphatically in raising the wages 
of their graduates, as in the case of the Manhattan Trade 
School of New York, sometimes actually select the least 
promising of those who leave the public schools at fourteen. 
But the reality and concreteness of the tasks appeal to the 
children. They are able to see into them as they were not 
able to see into their previous school work ; and although 
their experimenting is within narrow lines and too strictly 
confined to material things, they are able to see the results 
and to measure them by actual conditions in the labor world. 

Trade schools, however, are only patches joining the 
ragged garments of our educational and industrial systems. 
They simply educate the child so that he can be used as a 
cog in some industrial wheel — a thing they can do well be- 
cause they are close to the wheel. They send out individual 
parts well enough fitted to prevent them from being thrown 
into the scrap heap. For this they deserve high honor. 

[253] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

/*But the common schools, when they are true to their ideals, 
[ have a deeper and more comprehensive task. Their place 
I is to train human beings for citizenship. Although we can- 
I not have good citizens without vocations, neither can we 
have them without a culture which brings them into con- 
tact with the broader interests of humanity. The power 
ijLO organize and to appreciate existing conditions for the 
worthiest aims, whether for work or play, is the chief est 
virtue of a citizen. Merely reading or hearing about such 
organization will never produce satisfactory results. Habits, 
insight, and judgment gained from actual experience are 
the only practicable and progressive educational instru- 
ments. Pupils must be trained to create society, not to 
float in it. 

The constructive and manual training courses in our 
high and common schools should afford the most admira- 
ble opening for this kind of work. All studies are, of 
course, to be measured by their value in social service, but 
direct work with material yields a service which is both 
simpler and more fundamental than any other kind. The 
aims and purposes of the worker doubtless come first ; but 
the complexities of these cannot be developed much beyond 
the power to execute, without becoming fantastic and ster- 
ile. Science, literature, art, and philosophy may enlarge our 
aims, but if, either directly or through the organization of 
others, they fail to show results in actual, material better- 
ment, their spiritual significance is lost for this world, 
whatever may be true of the next. Manual training and 
industrial work become true cultural subjects on one con- 
dition, namely, that they be used to give the pupils the 
power to construct, not models in wood or clay, but their 

[254] 



MANUAL ARTS 

own lives and the lives of those with whom they are 
united in self-made social bonds. 

With such a training widespread in our schools, we may 
expect to have steadily growing in the community an ethics 
founded on work. This, too, will be guided by a conscience 
which works and which can work, because it will be more 
largely dependent on actual self-organized contact with 
fellow-men. Society will become an extension of the 
school, and the work of social education will be kept up 
in later life. If purpose groups formed in school are self- 
sustaining, they will be still more so in maturity. Even 
now the kinds of association which have been left to self- 
organization in school and college, although they are of the 
least spiritual and material significance, show a considerable 
tendency to go on. Dining clubs, fraternities, and other ' 
friendly organizations of fellows project themselves far 
beyond the school or college, and many are of the opinion 
that the effects of such associations are the most valuable 
results of a school or college course. Even when these 
organizations are considered, as they are in some educa- 
tional circles, dangerously inimical to the work of the 
school, it is only further proof of the unwisdom of allow- 
ing so powerful a force to escape enlistment in the more 
purely cultural field. When self-organized group work is 
recognized as the controlling condition of satisfactory work 
in school, it will be seen to apply even more effectively to 
adult industry and culture. 

Some such extension of social education is the only hope 
for democracy. On any other lines society breaks up into 
warring camps. The result of this is waste, when it is not 
positive degeneration affecting both industry and education. 

[255] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

As Franz Krauss says, in his study on folk death : " A 
people which is divided into two such camps can never avoid 
destruction, since extreme wealth and poverty are condi- 
tions which oppose the maintenance and development of 
the folk body. In the one camp there is failure of intelli- 
gence, because the individual organization is weakened in 
consequence of frivolous and unwholesome lives lasting 
through a file of generations, — a fact shown by the defi- 
ciency in organic strength and natural talent. In the 
other camp also there is failure of intelligence because, 
although there may be actual constitutional vigor, the 
means and opportunity are lacking for proper develop- 
ment. The sentiment of right is numbed and the feeling 
of solidarity is lacking on both sides, and completes the 
picture of deep decadence. The results of injustice, coer- 
cion, exploitation, antagonistic friction, produced within 
such a folk body, or precipitated by outside oppression, 
are written in terms of character degeneration and its ac- 
companiments. Decadence is plainly bound up with mal- 
formation of social relationships, and this itself is again fed 
from the injustice which finds its supporters and purveyors 
within the folk body. In this process education and oppor- 
tunity play an important part in that they bring to the 
surface these secret changes in character, which indeed are 
not plainly seen at once, but which, in the succession of 
generations, evolve drilled and sharpened, changed and 
degenerated social types." 

If America is to avoid such a condition of affairs, the 
schools, long idly complimented as the bulwark of our lib- 
erties, must be actually organized to produce the intelligent 
cooperation necessary for their preservation. In early times 

[256] 



MANUAL ARTS 

the American common school contained pupils from all 
classes of the community, and the contact of the children 
of both rich and poor produced a fellow feeling not entirely 
outgrown in later life. To-day private schools for the rich 
are steadily increasing in number. It is idle to inveigh 
against this tendency as an evil without looking into the 
causes for the change. The prime condition is that the 
rich do not feel that the common school offers the advan- 
tages and opportunities which they wish their children to 
have. They do not measure this in mere scholarship, but 
in life values so far as they understand them. They object 
not so much to the curricula of the public schools as to 
the kind of social contact to which their children are 
exposed. If any one will think himself into the place of 
these parents, he will find much to justify their course. 

There is, however, one life value germane to the common 
schools, although rarely practiced therein, which would ap- 
peal powerfully to the rich, namely, a training in leadership, 
in social effectiveness, and in honor. The rich who are not 
degenerates desire to lead in society. They desire, honor- 
ably enough, to convert a part of their wealth into social 
power and prestige, and even if this be impossible for them 
personally, they desire such opportunities for their children. 
It is not wholly with their approval that they see their off- 
spring grow up to spend their lives in frivolity, or to expa- 
triate themselves for mere pleasure. 

If the common schools offered actual experience in lead- 
ership, and an actual acquaintance with the problems of 
social organization, there are few parents, however rich, 
who would not see the value of such a training. Other 
things being equal, the son of rich parents would have 

[257] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

an advantage as a leader, although he would need to learn, 
by actual self-organized contact with others, the limits 
of this advantage. He is much more likely to find this 
out in school, where practically all are removed from the 
severity of economic strain, and where aims and purposes 
are naturally idealistic, than ever again in later life. He 
is also more likely to find an opportunity for his leader- 
ship in a common school than in one for the rich alone. 
The life of the playground is absolutely inadequate for 
such a culture. The youngest children in the schools 
know the difference between self-organized, productive 
work and mere play, and where there is no cooperative 
organization in higher concerns play itself tends to revert 
to brutal and uncultivated forms. The contact of the chil- 
dren of the favored classes with their less wealthy fellows, 
in such a way that the advantages of home refinement and 
material resources obtain the weight that they can naturally 
command in the presence of ideal interests and in face of 
the criticisms of an organized group, is not the kind of 
contact to which the undegenerate rich object. It is need- 
less to point out that such a truly common school must be 
presided over by teachers who know both rich and poor, 
and who are capable of being honored by both. 

In such a school constructive work, manual training, and 
industrial work would form the foundation of a large part 
of the activities of the children. To be properly carried 
out, this requires the best and most expensive equipment. 
Private resources ought to unite with general public taxes in 
paying the bills. For much of the self-organized work the 
pupils themselves ought to be the avenue through which 
the private support should flow. Our present practice of 

[258] 



MANUAL ARTS 

putting the same book or the same saw into the hands 
of every pupil, because, forsooth, the schools are to give 
equal opportunity for all, barely preserves the letter, and 
omits a great part of the spirit of real cooperation. Pupils 
should have the opportunity of giving themselves, or of 
interesting their parents to give, for specific purposes which 
they wish to carry out in combination with their fellows. 
On the other hand, means and equipment should not be 
lavished on those who do not know how to use them, and 
have no moral purpose in mind. Things that are made 
should be used in the school, or possibly sold under such 
regulations as would prevent competition with established 
industries. It might even be possible for such a school to 
pay for a certain part of its running expenses. 

Such an attitude on the part of those who support the 
school would be most socializing and humanizing both for 
rich and poor. The children of the wealthy would be 
trained to give, not for charity, but for the carrying out of 
schemes in which they are interested, and in which they 
have succeeded in interesting others. The children of the 
poor would not only learn to respect, but to appreciate and 
know, the stored human value of wealth, nor would they 
ever be overloaded with things which they would neither 
understand nor appreciate, since nothing would develop 
further than their desires and organized plans could carry 
them. With such conditions in the social embryo, the 
adult society which grows from it is not likely to show the 
extremes of material wealth and poverty which it unfortu- 
nately reveals to-day. Self -organization would take the 
place of coercion, and property might be seen to be what 
it essentially is, — a social product and a social good. 

[259] 



CHAPTER XI 
FINE ART 

Drawing and, in a growing number of cases, painting and 
modeling are now fully recognized on the ordinary school 
programme. What can best be done with them is still, 
however, a subject of debate. Too often they have been 
regarded as standing alone and affording a kind of relaxa- 
tion to the more strenuous work of the school ; and too 
often they have been handed over to outside teachers, or 
even to those who were not teachers at all. At one period 
in our history, courses in drawing and "drawing books" 
were practically dictated by Kensington. Amiable artists, 
inspired doubtless by ambition for art rather than for the 
development of pupils, consented to arrange in so-called 
logical form a series of exercises from straight lines up to 
historical designs or complicated perspectives, for the small 
consideration of the royalty on the books. 

The effect on the children was quite disastrous. An 
experience told by a lady of natural artistic taste, but now 
entirely unable to draw, will illustrate what Herod was 
doing among the innocents some twenty years ago. When 
a little girl this lady was provided, along with the rest of 
the class, with the usual drawing book : first page, verti- 
cal lines ; second page, horizontal ; third, oblique ; fourth, 
simple combinations, leading up through upright oblongs 
to a gravestone, with little marks for grass around the base, 

[260] 



FINE ART 

" How I worked and slaved for weeks with pencil and 
rubber," said she, "to get on to that gravestone, the one 
alluring object within my scope." 

Since those days drawing at least has been "correlated." ^ 
This was the introduction, and the acquaintanceship has 
been ripening ever since, until now there are few good 
schools that do not use drawing in more or less intimate 
connection with many other subjects. It soon began to be 
seen that one could draw in color, or even use color with- 
out much drawing. It became plain that mere line was an 
abstract, and that if crayon or brush were available, the 
child's imagination, which deals earliest with masses and 
wholes of things, was capable of expressing itself with in- 
telligence, rapidity, and force. But drawing in clay is also 
possible, and plastic work in this medium, simpler and more 
fundamental than either line drawing or color, was soon 
added. Kilns were established to burn and glaze the toy 
dishes, pottery, and figurines, which the children delighted 
to make. The subject as a whole has been striking its 
roots not only into other subjects, but back through the 
minor arts and crafts into life itself. 

A great part of this change was stimulated by the in- 
terest in child study. The work of Earl Barnes, Herman 
Lukens, and others on the spontaneous drawings of children 
revealed the imaginative and constructive features of such 
drawings, and showed that they were in reality ideographs 
rather than attempts at objective characterization. It was 
found that the young child drew much more what he 

1 The work of Dr. J. P. Haney in New York, where art and manual 
training have been put under one head, is one of the best examples in 
America of broad and liberal correlation. 

[261] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

thought than what he saw. He would thus represent in 
one picture the four sides of a house, or, Hke the early 
Greeks, show a full eye in a profile. It was also observed 
that he liked to portray a succession of events on the same 
page, and, quite contrary to Lessing's ancient canon as 
expounded in the " Laocoon," was accustomed to represent 
the time element and turn his drawings into a kind of drama. 

Another reason for the change was, doubtless, the devel- 
opment of art itself. In this, both impressionism and the 
increased interest in the minor arts have played a part. 
Impressionism led the teacher who understood it to look 
for the large and environmental aspects of what was seen, 
and to tolerate an emphasis which left out much. Such 
treatment is indeed quite characteristic of children's use of 
clay, crayon, and color. Although lacking the profound- 
ness, they begin in the spirit of Rodin and Monet, and 
naturally omit, because they do not see, what these men 
artificially repress. The growing prominence of the minor 
arts, with such leaders as Anning Bell, M. Bailie Scott, 
Professor Kolaman Moser, and Peter Behrens in their 
service, have shown the world that a chair, a chain, or 
an enameled comb may appeal to the imagination with as 
pure a note as any form of art. 

The tendency of these changes, depending on a more 
adequate conception of the subject on the one hand and 
the nature of the children on the other, can be summed up 
as increasing consciousness of the value of expression. As 
in other subjects, however, the semi-military or patriarchal 
organization of the school has led teachers to regard art 
expression as a matter of the individual rather than of the 
group or society of which he is a part. Mere expression is 

[262] 



FINE ART 

thus often sought for without its natural conditions. As 
a result, such expression becomes vague and empty, loses 
motive, and would die out entirely but for the stimulus of 
artificial competition and the teacher's demands. One side 
only of the rights of expression has been duly recognized. 
The other side, however, is equally important ; for what 
external reason, or to whom is the expression directed, is an 
even more controlling element than the ideas and emotions 
that are supposed to surge within the individual himself. 

The evils of this lack of insight are not so apparent in 
the lower grades. The reason is that the social reference 
is really present, although partly concealed. As already 
indicated, children make dramas of their drawings. Their 
figures are practically dolls, and are personified for the pur- 
pose of action. These constructions help them to imagine 
society, and this is the purpose for which they are made. 
Such play naturally runs into constructive work in paper 
and cardboard, which at this stage may properly enough be 
quite superficial. Even in this work, however, children are 
too much isolated, and therefore require to take the same 
"course" and repeat the same model. They would natu- 
rally undertake, if their motives were recognized, to com- 
bine with each other and divide their labor, in order to 
enjoy a larger and more complicated production. When 
this is done a transition is made from the imagined society 
of the single player to a real society of his fellows, and this 
reacts both on his idea and on his expression of it. He 
must fit in his idea and its expression to the conceptions 
of others. 

An example of this is seen in the following case. A 
number of children, from eight to ten years old, were 

[ 263 ] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

accustomed to meet on Saturdays and rainy days in the 
attic of the house of one of their number. Here they con- 
tinued from week to week a play based on their reading of 
Sunday-school books and other sources which had appealed 
to them. One of the tables in the attic represented Africa. 
Here were sand and palm trees made of grass and matches. 
Dolls were cut out of paper and painted black. In another 
place were the South Sea Islands, with tattooed savages 
and canoes ; in still another, China. The dolls here were 
ornately dressed, and tea and rice, obtained from the 
mothers, lent reality to the scene. London was repre- 
sented, from which the missionaries, dressed in long black 
coats, started on their journey in paper ships. Speeches 
were made, followed by an exercise in rhythmic gymnas- 
tics (would it not be ?), which represented the long voyage 
over the very high and swelling waves to the benighted 
shores of the South Sea Islands. Sermons were delivered 
to the natives, but to no purpose ; the missionaries were 
duly killed and eaten up. During the development of this 
play they " bothered the life out " of their parents to find 
out more about Africa and such places, but never thought 
of asking their teacher, who at this time was drilling them 
on the boundaries of the states and their capitals. But this 
was twenty years ago. 

This parable of the attic has many applications, but one 
is evident here, namely, that concerned with the draw- 
ing and painting involved, which, indeed, took most of the 
time in actual preparation for the production. Now sup- 
pose a teacher should suddenly have been transported to 
this attic, full of ambition to educate the mind and soul. 
Would he have rapped for order, put the children in 

' [ 264 ] 



FINE ART 

checkerboard rows, and directed them what to do ? Would 
he not have shown wisdom if he had first made sure of 
what was actually being done ? If his knowledge had been 
of the right kind, he might have helped this activity in such 
a way that the children would have welcomed it heartily. 
Here are the South Sea Islanders. What beautiful designs 
they used to tattoo on their bodies, and how strikingly they 
ornamented their canoes ! Chinese art, too, is shown in 
both the color and form of these magnificent robes. If the 
teacher does not happen to know such things at the moment, 
why can't he go and learn ? Libraries and museums may 
be near, and the children are already pretty well occupied 
for the day. This case is not so accidental as it seems. 
Such things could be done in the fchoolroom, and with 
plenty of notice given to the teacher as to what topics it 
would be wise to prepare. 

Art used in dramatizing doubtless goes further than the 
primary grades. Even in adult life the connection is strong 
and vital. A large part of our highest art, our best paint- 
ing and illustrating, to say nothing of plastic work, scene 
painting, costuming, and lesser forms, draws sustenance 
from the stage. In Greek times the drama and sculpture 
were religious services in their own right, while painting 
was only accessory. But to-day painting must rise to a 
direct social value for itself. Like music it must deliver 
its own message. As an independent form of expression 
it must appeal immediately to the perceptions of those to 
whom it is addressed. The painter lends his eyes, and it is 
quite as important that the borrowers appreciate the favor 
and know how to use it, as that the eyes of the painter 
should be trained and developed for this service. 

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It is in the lower grades, as already indicated, that the 
present ideas of teaching art succeed the best ; that is, so 
long as children are content to mess around with a little 
drama in the background of their minds, drawing and paint- 
ing appeal to them most. In the middle and upper grades, 
just when they should begin to do something more impor- 
tant, children seem to lose interest in what they are asked 
to do, and too few of them would continue their work if it 
were not for the teacher's control. This is a fact which is 
generally recognized. The cause of it is not so clearly seen. 
It does not seem likely that this falling off will be wholly 
remedied by making drawing more dependent on the arts 
and crafts. There is a real and most important value in 
art work as an independent culture, and this is one, more- 
over, which controls all other aesthetic expression appealing 
to the eye. Teaching ought not to decUne upon a lower 
plane of success, however real, if it is possible to overcome 
the difficulties of the more arduous task. 

Are these difficulties not largely due to an ignoring of 
the social aspects of art and a failure to find a natural social 
environment which the child artist of the middle and upper 
grades can appeal to, and whose admiration and love he can 
effectively arouse ? An adult artist aims to cause something 
in the minds of those who see his pictures. The same feel- 
ing of being a social cause to the fullest extent of his power 
must also be permitted to the child. 

At present the social environment of the child artist of 
the middle and upper grades is too largely adult. Even 
when his productions are exhibited to the class it is usually 
done with the purpose of getting from them the kind of 
criticism the teacher approves of. The practice is simply a 

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''method" in the teacher's armory. Left to himself, it is 
doubtful whether the artist would care to exhibit. Since 
others are producing the same idea, the result is one of 
competitive effort rather than of individual cooperation and 
division of labor. 

But it is not the school alone that makes the child indif- 
ferent to art at this age. Since he is not protected by a 
natural child environment for whom he can produce, the 
adult idea of art, as it exists in the world at large, begins 
to impinge upon him too soon. He suddenly wakes up to 
the feeling that, judged by adult standards, he is not able 
to draw. His early attempts look crude and foolish. He 
adopts the genius theory and excuses himself from all fur- 
ther attempts. The art infant has been prematurely born, 
and naturally dies. The wrappings and membranes of a child 
world, that should have protected it and nourished it, have 
been allowed to become thin, or are even torn off unwit- 
tingly by the adult-made course of study and the teacher. 

Few fully developed adult artists can look back at the 
productions of their adolescent years without feeling that, 
owing to the force of illusion, they have been mercifully 
preserved. If they had known at the time more of what 
art ought to be, it would have killed rather than stimulated 
their artistic growth. Hence it happens that many artists 
come from the country or from regions where in their early 
years they heard and saw but little of art. The same is true 
of races. The naiVe beginnings of Greek art would doubt- 
less have withered away if they had been confronted with 
the present development of, let us say, the art of Japan. To- 
day it is a question whether Japanese art, while giving much 
to our own, will not find itself arrested by the contact. 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

Undeveloped races of adults cannot well be protected 
from other races of adults, but nature has provided other- 
wise for children. Just as they are protected biologically 
from sexual strain, and, except where great poverty inter- 
feres, from economic strain, so should they be protected 
from every form of social strain. Such protection permits 
growth and prepares for the proper sexual, economic, and 
other social functions of maturity. This does not mean ab- 
solute isolation from the adult world. The forces of growth 
gradually remove the relative isolation of the beginning, 
but no step is naturally taken until there is inner power 
sufficient to cope with the external conditions. The natural 
means for this protection, as well as for its gradual removal, 
is self-organized interaction and cooperation among the 
children themselves. The teacher's function should be to 
further this activity both on its protective and its disrupt- 
ive side. 

When this attitude is taken, and the children's own plans 
for their artistic productions are allowed to lead, invention 
and individuality appear at once. On the other hand, just 
because there are others to please as well as the teacher, 
the teacher himself is able to give more fearless criticism 
than when his praise or blame determines everything. The 
rate of progress is more rapid, and the children, being con- 
scious of a background of social admiration and approval, 
do not adopt a blase attitude towards adult art, but stretch 
out towards it and strive to understand it, in order to use 
what they can for their own productions. They are being 
educated in effectiveness as well as in execution. 

An example of this kind of work, produced towards the 
end of the year by a group of third-grade children, may 

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serve as an illustration. A "Spring Book" group was 
formed by four or five girls. Each wished to make a book 
of paintings suggested by the spring, which was just begin- 
ning. They decided to confine themselves to flowers, and 
to paint one on each page. One of these books, which I 
possess, contains ten flowers painted from specimens that 
had been collected by the members of the group. They 
painted together and admired each other's work, and were 
glad to have it seen by others, but they made no special 
attempt to interest the rest of the class, who were occupied 
with other things. 

Another illustration from the sixth grade of the Wells 
School, Boston, in which the children drew pictures for 
several days in order to get the best arrangement for a 
series of tableaux which they were preparing, shows some 
interest in art for its own sake as well as for its service in 
other aims. 

Let us glance now for a moment at the matter which is 
expressed, — the thought or feeling which is passed from 
one to the other, — and we shall see that here also the 
social point of view is amply justified. The two cases given 
above express a content ordinarily accepted as beautiful, 
passing from an emphasis in color and form in the one case 
to action and dramatic quality in the other. Certain children 
are, without doubt, capable of understanding some features 
of the beautiful as it is ordinarily understood, but it is often 
overlooked that most children are still more impressed by 
the grotesque and the comic. In their natural expressions, 
however, and apart from adult decadent influences, some- 
times exemplified in the Sunday papers, these are as legiti- 
mate forms of the beautiful as any other. The grotesque, 

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especially, as distinguished from the comic, which is simply 
a more superficial form of the same feeling, is both deep 
and penetrating. As Ruskin pointed out, the whole of 
Gothic art originated in the grotesque. The dragon of 
China and Japan is a motive which, however decorative, 
always retains its value as a grotesque. If it is flattered 
so as to lose its touch of the unnatural and weird, it also 
loses its hold upon the imagination, and we feel that its 
place would be better filled by a flower or a bird. 

The grotesque originated in fear, and offers a means for 
its radiation and control. An example of the operation of 
these forces may be found in the quaint carvings decorat- 
ing the old Gothic cathedrals. When Christianity entered 
Europe it represented a higher love and reverence than the 
European nations had previously known. The old gods 
were, however, only slowly displaced. These had obtained 
a deep hold on the emotions and the imaginations of the 
people. Even where genuine convictions were established 
as to the greater nobility, tenderness, intellectual consist- 
ency, and social power of Christianity, the old gods were 
still to be reckoned with. They had always been gods of 
fear, although before the advent of the new religion they 
had also shown their protective qualities. This protection 
had now been repudiated, profitably on the whole, but not 
without the possibility of reprisals. As a result, an under- 
ground cult of the old gods was still continued. They were 
turned into fairies, sprites, gnomes, dwarfs, satyrs, devils, 
powerless under the sign of the cross, or at Christmas time, 
but still capable of doing a great deal of harm. In many 
parts of Europe, in Ireland for example, a serious view of 
these agencies still exists. 

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Whether from an intellectual plan, or, as is more likely, 
simply as a result of the logic of the emotions, Christianity 
showed its wonderful socializing force by taking hold of 
the more hideous forms and turning them into gargoyles 
and other grotesques, and making them of service both in 
the material building of the church and in the spiritual puri- 
fication of its members. It is to be remembered that these 
figures are to be found principally, if not always, on the 
outside of churches. They seem to have been made as hide- 
ous as possible, but still subject to law, doing some task, 
never the most honorable, their faces usually downwards, 
not forming finials, and finally, as another expression of 
tame submission, considerably conventionalized in design. 

The effect of this upon the beholder is easy to imagine. 
At first startled with the fearsome figure, the associa- 
tions representing his imagination of, and half belief in, the 
old gods thoroughly aroused, the next moment he realizes 
where he is. The immense pile of the cathedral, repre- 
senting his new love and reverence, rises powerfully before 
him. He is saved from his fears, and if they occur again 
at a distance from the place of sanctity and salvation, he is 
very likely to remember the experience he has had. He 
has been provided as in a drama with the reconcilement of 
a fifth act. 

If the fear has been deep, his feeling becomes one of 
relief and peace, characteristic of the real grotesque. If, 
however, the fear aroused is somewhat slighter, a sense 
of comic humor is awakened and he may smile or laugh, 
especially if he finds himself with companions whose pres- 
ence both weakens his fears and strengthens his assurance 
of sympathy. This latter attitude is probably the only one 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

which men of the present generation are capable of feeling, 
.and even our sense of the comic in these figures is not 
strong without some realization of the historic past in 
which they are placed. 

The grotesque is, on the whole, an embryonic form of 
art, appearing in races at the beginning of civilization. It 
expresses strong and primitive feelings, and sometimes the 
deepest convictions. It may be executed with the simplest 
means, and although capable of high technique, is not sub- 
merged by the lack of it. It is a combination of similar 
elements that makes children's drawings also naturally 
grotesque, although the particular themes dealt with are 
not identical with those of primitive adults. Unfortunately 
the usual courses of study made by adults tend to kill out 
this form of childish expression by insisting on a content 
of thought and feeling concerned -with the beautiful as 
ordinarily and too narrowly understood. 

Some years ago the present writer made an attempt to 
get back of the usual course of study and see whether 
children had any fears which they could naturally express 
by means of art in school. After being started by the 
teacher, who told what he used to be afraid of, the chil- 
dren were ready enough to describe what troubled them. 
Doing this to their comrades in broad daylight, with laugh- 
ter and sympathy, was itself, although a little exciting, an 
experience which gave courage, confidence, and consolation. 
As Aristotle said, we make war in order to have peace, 
and have fear in order to love. Later on, the teacher asked 
those who remembered things they were afraid of, which 
could not well be described in words, to draw or paint 
them. This was done gladly, and the children showed 

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them to each other, often with great humor and much 
laughter. The drawings made from the second to the 
eighth grades represented snakes, ghosts, burning houses, 
runaways, horses, elephants, bears, murders, pursuits, bur- 
glars, dark rooms, falling from cHffs and high buildings, 
and horrible things which the artist saw but could not 
name. There was no doubt of the reality of the experi- 
ence, but the most interesting feature of the experiment 
was the vigor of the artistic treatment. Economy of effort 
was marked throughout. Everything was done with "two 
dots and a dash," as modern art requires. 

A word may be said in conclusion as to the development 
of art and its social significance in the higher grades and 
in the life of the ordinary citizen. In order that the indi- 
vidual be trained to the appreciation of the highest adult 
art, it is of course necessary that he rise beyond the point 
of view of the grotesque or comic and enter into the under- 
standing and enjoyment of the beautiful as such, or in its 
finer and more restricted sense. The age at which this 
begins to be possible is probably not before the beginning 
of adolescence. There seems to be good reason for believ- 
ing that art is in reality a radiation of sexual emotion which 
it serves at once to stimulate, to purify, and to control. If 
this is so, it is in the upper grades and in the high school 
that the taste for the characteristically beautiful ought to 
make its appearance, and it is beyond this period that it 
ought to produce its greatest effects. 

It is quite apparent, even to ordinary observation, that 
the great symbols of beauty do not appeal to little children. 
They would rather play in the sea than gaze at it, rather 
count the stars than wonder at their majesty. Children 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

miss the tenderness of landscape. They see the dawn, but 
not its blush. Their blood does not sing with " the color of 
rain and riot in the woods." The romantic and the passion- 
ate as well as the austerely beautiful, the vibration of deep 
feeling, or the ecstasy of a quiet dream which stills emotion 
because it rises out of it, finds no response within their 
souls. The reason of this is obvious. The master passion 
of love, which gives tone to all these other varieties of 
feeling, is not yet awakened within them. 

Among the first signs of a real appreciation of the beau- 
tiful is the special interest that boys and girls begin to take 
in their personal appearance and adornment. This is quite 
different from the desire to be merely clean or neat, which 
may be inculcated at an earlier age or even be quite want- 
ing. A child may despise another who is dirty and be proud 
of its own superior condition, but not until it approaches 
puberty does it use its cleanliness or other qualities for the 
purpose of attracting and capturing the admiration of others 
of its own age, especially those of the opposite sex. When 
this time comes, mere neatness or cleanliness is not regarded 
as a sufficient means of expression. Something much more 
unique and individual is felt to be necessary — something, 
indeed, which draws attention to and enhances the phys- 
ical or psychic perfection of the individual or conceals 
or disguises what is supposed to be deficient. A bright 
ribbon or a necktie, an open laugh if the teeth be good, 
smiles if a dimple shows, rings if the hands are fine, poses, 
ways of walking, witty remarks, fine phrases, well-toned 
modulations, and all kinds of actions and stage properties 
which display or show off personal charms, are in constant 
use. It is quite evident to any observer that it is not the 

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^ FINE ART 

opinion or approval of older people which is sought for. 
The effect that the individual aims at is the admiration of 
persons about the same age of the opposite sex, and the 
defeat or outclassing of rivals of his own. This latter 
motive in the earHer stages may overshadow the primary 
one, and by arrest of development become a prominent 
feature throughout life. It is, however, based upon the sex- 
ual emotion. As the males of the passerine birds arrive 
at the nesting places days in advance of the females, and 
spend their time in singing or other rivalry, so both boys 
and girls often prefer to separate for the unavowed and 
partly unconscious purpose of showing off, or practicing 
and perfecting their powers without the immediate pres- 
ence of members of the opposite sex. These, however, it is 
safe to say, are not far from either their thoughts or their 
feelings. 

The result of this courting play, it will readily be seen, 
is to produce a sharper appreciation of certain rather crude 
but important and fundamental manifestations of the beau- 
tiful. This appreciation is not merely passive, but primarily 
creative. To decorate one's self properly and to display one's 
charms and powers is a work of art. Until the person cre- 
ates for himself, he does not well understand the creation 
of others. Just as the grotesque is a radiation of childish 
fear, so this art of personal display is a radiation of love. 

It is quite evident that at this stage a higher form of art 
— landscape, for example — would be wasted on the youth. 
Not until his longings are more mature does he care for 
the moonlight night, in which he may wander, lovelorn, or 
happy with his sweetheart, or in which his thoughts may 
wander with equal mystery and much the same background 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

of emotion. The lonely sea, the majestic mountain, the 
woods and fields are not till later suitable symbols for his 
feelings ; nor do they ever become so until he finds in them 
an echo of the deepest sentiments of his life. Although at 
this later stage he may not set down on canvas the record 
or analysis of his aesthetic feeling, he really creates a work 
of art, and paints a landscape suffused with emotion in the 
depths of his soul. Until he does so he can never under- 
stand, because he cannot feel the works of art produced 
by others. 

That children may occasionally look at pictures by great 
masters is no proof of any adequate appreciation. They 
look at these pictures as they look at anything else : 
"There are three cows," " Here is a man and he is chop- 
ping wood," "That is the sun; it is going down." Some 
information, perhaps, may be gained, but there is hardly 
the slightest touch of aesthetic feeling. In this they are 
quite like a great many grown-up people, and perhaps like 
some of their teachers. The use of cheap reproductions, 
with which our primary schools are beginning to be filled, 
is no indication that art or a feeling for the beautiful is 
thereby advanced to any considerable extent. 

From the seventh grade up, it is, however, quite reason- 
able to expect that if principles of decoration were taught 
in a sufficiently concrete manner, and as applied to per- 
sonal adornment and household stage property, there would 
be real appreciation on the part of the young. It is equally 
reasonable to expect that there would be, under these con- 
ditions, a real development of their conceptions of art and 
the beautiful, and one that would lead them to a higher 
stage, such as is involved in an understanding of painting 

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and the related graphic and plastic arts. The principles of 
form and color apply to a hat or a gown as well as to a 
piece of colored canvas in a gold frame. 

The social implications of such a point of departure are 
quite obvious. First, as concerns the ideas dealt with. A 
study of the different ways in which human beings living 
at the present time and in past ages have satisfied their 
need of adornment would lead to a study of the costumes 
of different nations and an examination of smaller objects 
of art, such as rings, brooches, pins, etc., and the artistic 
processes which have produced them. A study of the fab- 
rics which people use in clothing would be of the great- 
est social significance. The help of some science or labora- 
tory work would probably be appreciated. How much 
wool and how much cotton is there in a piece of cloth, is 
an important question for the purpose of the best adorn- 
ment, and a knowledge of how to apply a suitable test 
would have excellent economic results in the control of the 
supply of inferior goods frequently offered in the market. 
Such a simple test as boiling in caustic potash is within the 
means of every one. 

Secondly, in working out such ideas, cooperative and 
productive effort on the part of the students would be 
easily obtained. As a simple illustration of this I may cite 
the work of a group in the Girls' English High School, 
Boston, in a class in literature under Miss Elizabeth M. 
Richardson. This group made a study of Elizabethan man- 
ners and customs to present to the class, and, in order to 
express part of their ideas, dressed five dolls most charm- 
ingly in the costumes of the period. In doing this, they 
followed Dion Clayton Calthrop's work on the history of 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

English costume. Although the dressing of the dolls was 
done under the title of English, it is quite plain that it is 
also art work, and surely no one will be disappointed to 
find such work so closely correlated, and capable of service 
in other fields (l). 

The further education in art, which should come after 
pupils leave the school, is at present conspicuous by its 
absence. This is particularly true of the arts which appeal 
to the eye. The art museums attempt in some places to 
do something for the public, but for the most part effect 
practically nothing, except for the specialist. The higher 
stages of art seem to have moved almost entirely outside of 
the range of the people, who content themselves with char- 
acterless photographs of living friends, air-brush crayon 
portraits of dead ones, cheap representations hung upon 
the wall and never looked at, to say nothing of the vulgar- 
ity and lack of composition of the objects of furniture 
which encumber and disfigure the ordinary home. The 
peasant life of Europe may have been bitterly wanting in 
fundamental necessities of life, but it was not so poverty- 
stricken and squalid in matters of taste. 

The failure of the sense of the beautiful is already hav- 
ing serious social and economic results. It is at the bottom 
of a considerable part of our industrial difficulties. Manu- 
facturers supply a demand. But when the demand is undis- 
criminating, childish, and about as well satisfied with the 
ugly, vulgar, and merely costly as with the truly beautiful, 
the supply begins to control the demand, and manufactur- 
ers, like glass-bead traders among savages, are able to dic- 
tate the situation and twist the market more and more to 
suit themselves. Trash is sold at high prices, while, quite 

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often, better goods are overlooked. This reacts upon the 
laborers themselves. Since the demand is not discriminat- 
ing, goods can be produced by unintelligent help, who are 
poorly paid, massed in battalions under the eye of a task- 
master, and more interested in their wage than in their work. 

The only way to check this tendency is to educate the 
people, in a self-organized and cooperative manner, to pro- 
duce the beautiful for themselves. This will not only partly 
supply the market and give interesting and lucrative occu- 
pations for dangerously unoccupied hours, but will raise 
the general standard of taste and improve the production 
of the country as a whole. If the art museum is to help 
effectively in this effort, it must be turned into an institu- 
tion even more thoroughly social than the excellent public 
libraries of our towns and cities. It must drop its sphinx- 
like attitude and bring itself down to the actual lives of the 
people. It must answer their questions as to the beautiful 
in their homes, the clothing they wear, the houses they 
would build or rent. It must devote more space to the 
minor arts, and particularly to the cultivation of those arts 
like needlework, lacemaking, pottery, carving, etc., which 
the people can pursue at home. It should provide local ex- 
hibitions, kilns for firing pottery, and lectures for explain- 
ing the beauties of ancient and modern masterpieces. 

Unless some such effort is made, there is danger not 
only of losing the sense of the beautiful, but of falling 
behind as a nation in the markets of the world. Success 
in husbanding and promoting our artistic resources would, 
on the other hand, lead to a happier as well as to a pro- 
founder social life. Many of our moral and religious ques- 
tions would receive a better answer. Manners and customs 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

would be more refined, amusements less coarse and shallow. 
Sanitary and hygienic needs would press more strongly 
upon us. Art and the sense of the beautiful is by no means 
a mere luxury, but a necessity for our most effective social 
and personal development. Like a crown of harmony be- 
tokening real command over subordinate powers, the angel 
of life holds this blessing above our heads, waiting for us 
to recognize our birthright as a civilized nation and a truly 
social people. 

Reference. 1. Elizabeth M. Richardson, Social Education Quar- 
terly, Vol. II, No. I. 



[280] 



CHAPTER XII 

THE EDUCATION OF THE CONSCIENCE 

The education of the conscience means the teaching 
of practical as distinguished from theoretical ethics. Like 
other teaching it implies learning on the part of pupils. 
The learning, in this case at least, must be learning to do. 
But doing is already started and in full swing before learn- 
ing is possible. The problem of teaching (and of learning) 
the best conduct must therefore begin with what is going 
on habitually or instinctively, and must attempt to develop 
out of this something better. The individual must learn that 
he is to be held responsible for his acts, that he must gradu- 
ally rise above instinctive or impulsive conduct, must study 
and criticise the effects of what he does, and control his 
Hfe to the fullest extent that his intelligence will permit. 
He must feel that either singly or in combination with 
others he is a cause of what happens. 

In many and to some extent in all instances in life we 
are causes without realizing it at the time. A great part of 
the tragedy of existence arises from this fact. We do 
things without knowing or being able to know their full 
consequences, and yet we feel impelled to stand by these 
acts, and to assume that because they were ours we are 
responsible for their outcome. This is really the essence of 
courage, and life would break down without some such 
attitude. In fact, if we attempt to eliminate from ourselves 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

all responsibility for consequences except those which we 
had fully foreseen, there would be very little of us left. 
Although it is an assumption, and quite monstrous from a 
purely intellectual standpoint, yet it is one which all of us 
who are not morally imbecile, spontaneously and naturally 
accept. And it is only after we have staked ourselves on 
the issue that we begin to bolster up our conviction by 
appeals to reason. We say that we accept this or that re- 
sponsibility because we were the unwitting cause, whereas 
we really see and admit our causal action (without much 
foundation so far as our purely individual life is concerned) 
because we have already assumed the responsibility. The 
glory of such conduct does not arise out of the apparent 
premises. It comes rather from the fact that in the moment 
of expansion when the individual accepts the action and 
calls it his own, he is really then a cause, and feels the joy 
of being so, but, by a kind of mirage, projects the event to 
some past period which has at least the convenience of 
being easily objectified. That this is the truth seems plain 
when we consider that we can never rest in any portion of 
the past. If my action at a previous time is the cause of 
what is now happening, what was the cause of that action 
then } And so on, till, with modern ideas of heredity, we 
are far beyond the confines of the individual, or even of 
the human race. 

It thus appears that the "imperatives" of which we are 
conscious are the result of our own selection. They are 
revealed to us in the clash of actual living. If we reject 
them, we can always find seemingly satisfactory reasons 
for doing so. If we admit them, we can also make them 
appear to be reasonable. In reality these imperatives are 

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THE EDUCATION OF THE CONSCIENCE 

simply guides for experience. We treat them as working 
hypotheses, which are to be justified by the verifications 
of facts of conduct of which we regard ourselves as the 
cause. We make these hypotheses come true by the acts 
which we perform. 

But if we select our duties, we no sooner do so than we 
feel that all the circumstances of the world are powerless 
in the face of them. We may sacrifice happiness or life to 
maintain them. Even if we fail to produce the facts they 
call for, the original selections still remain, each of them 
a monarch, without an empire, but not without a crown. 
Nothing can shake them except a flaw in the title, followed 
by a further and broader selection of new duties involving 
still greater assumption of responsibility and a more pro- 
found and expansive feeling of causality. Indeed, we are 
not able to see the flaws in the duties we have already 
selected, except in the light of the larger duties to which 
they cede. 

It is plain that the child, as he grows to maturity, passes 
through stages of moral development in which he arrives at 
a gradually increasing consciousness of the reality of per- 
sonal causation. At first he is surrounded in the family by 
stimuli to action which affect him by way of unconscious 
imitation. A large part of this is without the incitement of 
words, and is quite like what occurs in the education of any 
young animal. The chick learns to peck partly through the 
stimulus of seeing its mother do so. The child runs, puts 
out its hand, laughs and cries when others are doing the 
same thing. It is not that he chooses to do these things 
— he cannot help doing them. The stimulus drives through 
his organism and sets him going. Later on, words have a 

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SOCIAL EDUCATION 

similar effect. By creating a motor image composed of 
activities already used, by picturing another, or himself re- 
garded as another, as doing certain things, the imitative 
action follows automatically. At any part in this process, 
however, the feeling of being a cause may arise. He may 
observe the effects that are being produced, and may either 
experience an inward joy as he sees the meaning of his 
action, or may arrest it as unsatisfactory. 

While the first fact about conscience is the feeling of 
causation, the content and direction of the action and the 
particular effects aimed at are always the result of social 
environment, modified by the creative imagination of the 
individual agent. If we look at conscience functionally or in 
action, it is experimental, pragmatic, and a question of the 
sense of individual effectiveness. If we look at it statically, 
either as the ground or as the imaged aim of the action, it 
is always a state of society which we have in mind. We 
are surrounded and controlled by a great cloud of witnesses, 
actual friends and neighbors, opponents and enemies, past 
saviors and heroes of the race, the future wife or husband, 
the unborn child, or the Great Companion, God — a brother- 
hood and fatherhood and childhood for whose sake and by 
whose tragic or inspiring example we live and act. 

To develop an imaged assembly of persons in an indi- 
vidual is the work of education. For this the first thing 
that is necessary is actual primary contact with other indi- 
viduals. It is from this contact as a basis that we build up 
our images and ideals. But what other individuals ? Shall 
we select them, if possible, so that their manners shall be 
perfect, their morals irreproachable ? Shall we fill the mind 
with perfect pictures, pure Sir Galahads .? Would heaven 

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THE EDUCATION OF THE CONSCIENCE 

be a good place for the purpose of education and develop- 
ment ? If moral training were simply a matter of uncon- 
scious imitation, there is no doubt that such a plan would 
be the most efficacious, but when we remember that it is 
primarily a matter of the feeling of being a cause, it is plain 
that something more is requisite. Some opportunity, and 
the greatest opportunity he is capable of using, must be 
found for the individual to accomplish results in social 
causation. Sir Galahad, the flawless teacher, or the care- 
fully chosen circle of companions, do not call very poignantly 
for assistance. And even if we take them as examples, we 
must find some field to carry these examples into practice. 
If we are to obtain an imaged assembly of persons that we 
care for, we must do these persons some service. While 
part of this service may not be appreciated, or may even be 
objected to at the time, it is surely reasonable to think that 
by far the greater bulk of it should be welcomed and hon- 
ored. If we are to do unto others as we would have them 
do to us, a return of honor, if not of other service, is as 
unavoidable as action and reaction in the law of gravitation. 

Even if we say that our first business is to reform our- 
selves, the purpose of making ourselves better is narrow, 
unethical, and devoid of causal feeling, if we have not also 
in mind the service that this improvement will be to others. 
As a matter of practical experience, it is always for some 
loved person's sake that we hold ourselves together, resist 
temptation, or scale the heights of heaven. What would 
they do, or what would they think of us if we fell, is the 
question which fortifies us. 

On the other hand, to work upon ourselves is heartless 
work, if some one else is not helping us in the effort. If 

[285] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

some one else does not feel an interest in our being better 
and stronger, does not long to have us so, and does not 
admire and honor us for the good that is already in us and 
the service we have already performed, there is little like- 
lihood that we shall ever improve. It is isolation that 
is hell. 

It is thus not the receptive attitude, but the active 
outstreaming of initiative and leadership, which, as distin- 
guished from its basis in social habit and custom, is the 
starting point of all personal morality. We give in this 
sphere before we can get. To give is not only more blessed, 
but more necessary than to receive. We do first and under- 
stand afterwards, and by virtue of the return that comes 
to us from those we serve. This return of honor, more- 
over, is a part and measure of the action, whether it be 
honor received from those above us, from those on a simi- 
lar level, or from those below us. 

The first of these is the easiest to strive for. Humanity 
is almost instinctively ready to oblige, to serve, and to re- 
ceive honor from those really felt to be on a higher level. 
It is more difficult to deserve and receive honor, in the 
sense of feeling its value, from those on the same level or 
those below us. But it is at the same time more necessary 
for democracy and for the school. When those who are 
looked up to by others receive a service without returning 
honor and admiration, or give a service and feel too indiffer- 
ent or unwilling to receive and actually treasure its natural 
return, they are meanly and proudly attempting a fraud upon 
human nature. If the good Samaritan cared nothing for the 
feelings that would be awakened in the traveler to Jericho, 
but was only serving God, he missed the point. 

[286] 



THE EDUCATION OF THE CONSCIENCE 

The feeling of being a cause is weakened and diminished, 
if it does not extend to the back effects of the causal action 
upon self as well as to its direct effect upon others. The 
chain of social causation may be broken at this link as well 
as at another. As in simple muscular action, the muscular 
sense itself is as necessary to guide the finger or the limb 
as its contact with an external object. So in the higher 
ranges of action, the feeling of honor, the morally kinaes- 
thetic element, reveals itself as necessary to the best ad- 
justment and the most effective conduct. And yet there 
seems to be a class of moral paralytics whose defect is not 
so much that they do what is overtly wrong, as that they 
are insensitive to the joy of honor feeling, and thereby 
impair their own power of social contact. They attempt 
austerely and ascetically to insulate themselves, and conse- 
quently fail to get the stimulating impression on their own 
hearts of the true personality of others. Honor becomes in 
their minds something purely subjective, for which they are 
indebted to no one. They sometimes say that they act 
from principle, and not for any return. But the content of 
this principle is an idea of their own, a fragment of self, 
which is not simply a working hypothesis, but is regarded, 
as well as the principle, as a priori and eternal. As George 
Meredith is never tired of showing in his novels, they love 
their idea of Love better than they love their lovers. 

But it is not only cold egoism which tends to weaken 
the range and depth of moral causation. Our imaged as- 
sembly of persons suffers as much from the refusal to give 
honor as the inability to receive it. When we compare the 
image of self with that of another, and find a discrepancy 
against us, there are two ways of leveling up. We may 

[287] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

admit the conduct or virtue that we have observed. To do 
this is to enlarge ourselves. Or we may, on the other hand, 
attempt to reduce the discrepancy by minimizing the value 
of what we observe. In this case we contract our image of 
the other, and really diminish our own resources and our- 
selves. This is envy, and must be distinguished from the 
just and discriminating criticism which aims to give the 
truth without flattery on the one hand or depreciation on 
the other. 

Condemnation or blame is another important phase of 
the psychology of honor. It cannot be said that justifiable 
blame is useless in society ; but it is probably, to a large 
extent, a reversion to the instincts of the tribe. Here the 
criminal was made the scapegoat, and the rest of the tribe 
were educated in solidarity and protected against the future 
commission of the particular crime by the powerful social 
awakening of horror which its condemnation in the person 
of the criminal involved. To reclaim the criminal himself 
was never a part of the intention. 

To-day, with the development of a higher, more individu- 
alized social solidarity, the instinct to condemn, in slighter 
offenses at least, is nearly always accompanied or quickly 
followed by a feeling of the individual worth of the offender. 
But we often try to drive the two opposite tendencies in 
the same direction. We say we blame for the good of the 
person blamed. Does this ever go farther than words .? Is 
there not always a subtle loading off of our own responsi- 
bility.? Not until we feel our own human solidarity suffi- 
ciently to be able to blame ourselves at the same time and 
for the same offense, although we may not have committed 
it in detail, do we win the right to issue blame that is truly 

[288] 



THE EDUCATION OF THE CONSCIENCE 

cooperative. Judge not unless we are also judged. It is 
not so much a question of the mote in the eye of one, and 
a different kind of beam in that of the other ; the beam is 
quite likely to be a piece of the same stuff as the mote. It 
may be, however, that even yet some people need the privi- 
lege of being allowed to blame others in order to protect 
and fortify themselves. The fairly general use of the term 
"force of public opinion," to cover cases of repression 
rather than of encouragement, would seem to indicate such 
a need. 

The service that is appreciated by others is quite fre- 
quently of an apparently insignificant character, but if it 
is timely, based on a true image of the other person, and 
delicately adjusted to his actual needs, it may go further 
in social causation than more heroic efforts. In real causa- 
tion nothing is stereotyped and nothing occurs again. The 
situation calling for our activity is always a new one, in- 
volving different persons and untried possibilities. Our idea 
of how to act must therefore always be an hypothesis, and 
our action an experiment. If a cup of cold water is the 
thing to-day, it will be something else to-morrow. When 
we become mere repeaters, we have fallen below the level 
of free organization and effective causality which is our 
privilege and joy. We can never adapt our services effect- 
ively to another by merely imitating good examples or fol- 
lowing excellent prescriptions. Originality and invention, 
based on a clear image of the actual personality of the 
other, is a necessity of successful moral conduct. 

When we serve another we build up our own conscience 
because we improve our understanding of the other, and at 
the same time we increase our own causality by liberating 

[289] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

causal forces in another individual. Every moral act either 
removes hindrances to accomplishment or directly liber- 
ates energy in some one else. To enable some other person 
to feel that he is a greater and more effective cause and 
can better carry out the aims and purposes that he desires, 
is a necessary feature of all service. Moral conduct, as 
already suggested, is concerned not only with the heroic 
part of life, but with it all. The individuals to be served 
do not usually need to be heroes, and do not often desire 
to be ; but there is nearly always some point at which they 
wish to be more effective, although it may be nothing more 
than to earn a livelihood or to get a better job. Lyman 
Abbott goes so far as to recommend that the man who is 
already doing well in life should hand over to others as 
much work as he can, and search for new labor himself. 
Let him get some one else to tend the furnace or clear the 
sidewalk, while he finds something more productive and 
more difficult to do for himself. Finding suitable work for 
other people, planning that others may plan, is particularly 
the teacher's art, and we shall never be a truly moral com- 
munity until, to this extent, we are all teachers. The care 
and the culture of men is the background of all the com- 
mandments. 

How simple the point of application often is may be 
illustrated by a case drawn from the school. A boy who 
had been dismissed from six different schools, one after the 
other, and received into a seventh, was sent by the teacher 
of his grade to the child-study specialist attached to the 
school, to see if he could give any advice. The boy was 
reported as generally troublesome and disobedient, and he 
was, at fourteen years of age, three years behind his grade. 

[290] 



THE, EDUCATION OF THE CONSCIENCE 

Physical examinations showed no defect of sight or irregu- 
larity of hearing. He was a stout, ruddy, apparently healthy 
boy. He was, however, several inches below the normal 
height for his age, his arms were abnormally long and 
of considerably uneven length, the skull was much larger 
on the left side than on the right, and the bones of the 
face were also irregular. These indications led the special- 
ist to inquire through the teacher as to heredity, and it was 
found that grandfathers on both sides had been epileptics. 
The father was a hard drinker and very quarrelsome. The 
boy also, although generally good-humored, was known to 
be violent when provoked. The specialist observed the boy 
also in class, and noticed a series of little actions, like clap- 
ping out of time when the class was singing, frequently 
dropping things on the floor, stumbling, etc., which did not 
seem to be done out of malice, although they were not 
apologized for when they occurred. It was from accidents 
of this kind that nearly all the trouble had arisen. 

At another interview the specialist found that the boy was 
very anxious to be a good baseball player, but that he had 
had little success in the game. The lad said he didn't know 
what was the matter, but he always seemed to miss the 
ball just as he thought he was going to catch it, and that 
he was little better at the bat. At this point an hypoth- 
esis came into the mind of the specialist. Said he, " It 
seems to me that you are like a horse that breaks." (The 
boy had previously shown a large knowledge of race horses, 
due to the fact that his father worked with them.) " What 
do you do with a horse that breaks his trot ? Do you whip 
him.?" The boy said: "No — not if it is serious. We 
generally put him in the stable for a few days and take 

[291] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

care of him." The specialist repHed : " I have an idea. I 
beUeve we can help you both to get on at baseball and in 
school. When you go back to your room, take some part 
of your body, say your right hand, and place it somewhere, 
— on your desk, in your pocket, or anywhere else. Look at 
the clock and decide on the length of time you can keep 
your hand in that position without moving it. But every 
time you ' break,' put the record down, and bring me the 
number of times you have succeeded and the number of 
times you have failed. Of course, if the teacher asks you 
to do anything during the period, that will be understood 
to be no break, and meanwhile we will say nothing to the 
teacher or anybody else about it." 

" That's easy," said the boy ; " I could do that for half an 
hour at a time." 

"Better not try more than fifteen minutes," said the 
specialist. 

The first day, even at this rate, was filled with failures, 
and five minutes was tried. This he succeeded with, and 
after two or three days took ten minutes. He kept increas- 
ing the time for about a month, and thought himself that 
it had a good effect on his steadiness in baseball. At least, 
he was gaining for some reason. The teacher, who was 
told nothing of the arrangement until some time later, 
was delighted with the improvement in the boy's conduct. 
"Did you give him a talking to.-* " she asked. On the con- 
trary, as the reader sees, the real secret was cooperative 
planning between the boy and the specialist. 

Conscience, as the origin of the word suggests, is a sort 
of knowing together. Its law is that of love and honor. It 
expects others to treat us as they would treat themselves. 

[292] 



THE EDUCATION OF THE CONSCIENCE 

It commands us to do to others as we would have them do 
to us. This, as Henry D. Lloyd expresses it, is the law of 
social gravitation to which every act is forced to be obe- 
dient. Our conduct and our images of conduct tumble to 
pieces like badly constructed buildings when we ignore 
it. The law of love in conduct, however, like the law of 
gravitation in building, does not actually invent the con- 
structions that will survive. It only tests them after they 
have been invented. The estimate of how others should 
do unto us varies with every generation and every state of 
society. Certain savages, for instance, would rather be 
killed and eaten by their relatives than be buried in the 
ground and perhaps be dug up afterwards by wild beasts. 
While the law is constant, the acts governed by the law are 
as widely opposed as the primitive hut and the New York 
skyscraper. Images of conduct different from what is cus- 
tomary must therefore be entertained. We cannot strangle 
them in the cradle. They must be developed, expressed to 
others, and even acted out to some extent before they can 
be judged either by other people or by the person who has 
originated them. If this is not done, the individual remains 
sterile, and even to make mistakes is not so wasteful nor 
such a disappointment to our fellow-men as to contribute 
nothing. Indeed, the man who never makes mistakes is 
not likely to make anything else. 

It is neverthless reasonable that in our experimentation 
with new and possibly explosive ideas, the greatest care 
should be used. Discussion — the fullest freedom of speech 
— is the great invention by which humanity insures the 
safest exploitation of new ideas. Talking, as well as other 
forms of mere expression, is, of course, a kind of action, but 

[ 293 ] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

it is specially useful because of its economy. Discussion 
brings to light ideas of other people, and necessarily modi- 
fies them by either strengthening or weakening the original 
idea. "To unpack the heart with words," does not always 
delay action. It sometimes accumulates and precipitates it. 
The result depends in each case upon the social environ- 
ment, and to whom or for whom we unpack. 

In ordinary business affairs the value of discussion is 
regarded by every one as of the greatest moment. A 
large and successful business firm of some thirty members, 
known to the present writer, is led by a man of extraordinary 
business genius. This man will come to the meetings of 
the firm and talk for two hours, sometimes saying nothing 
that is not, in the eyes of the others, the most astounding 
foolishness. But occasionally in the middle of this exhibition 
of fantasy, he will drop a hint or sketch a brilliant plan 
that no one else would have been able to think of. When 
this is seized by the others and carried out in action, it is 
sometimes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the 
firm. The so-called well-balanced, conservative individual, 
proud of his "judgment" and relying narrowly upon it, is 
evidently an inadequate competitor with the man who can 
find friends who will permit, and perhaps wring from him, 
the last vagary of fancy. 

In the deeper, more personal business of life the situation 
is the same. Parents and teachers need to offer opportuni- 
ties for the most complete confession, not so much of 
faults committed, but of plans and purposes for the future, 
even if these should be but half formed, imperfect, and 
fanciful. It is, indeed, those dreams and prospects just 
beyond our reach which are often the controHing factors 

[ 294 ] 



THE EDUCATION OF THE CONSCIENCE 

of conduct. It is not sufficient to direct, advise, and im^ 
press children and pupils with the right way of acting. It 
is a mistake to instill constantly. One must not omit the 
delicate distillation necessary to extract the last aroma of 
personal revelation. 

The provision of such a confessional for the experiments 
of the future, free as possible from past regrets, and full of 
the atonement of divine and human fellowship, is a work 
not only for the school but also for the church and the 
home. Parents should not only be ordinarily approachable, 
but in order to be so they should be known to be experi- 
mentalists themselves. Children should not feel that they 
know beforehand the cut-and-dried reaction of father and 
mother on any question capable of different solutions. The 
kind of friends, occupations in life, amusements, and many 
habits have been chosen differently by very worthy people. 
Parents should realize that their own lives, no matter what 
their achievements, might have been even more successful 
than they are, or, at least, successful in a different way. 
Every life as a whole is largely an experiment, and nature 
is trying it over again in the new generation. Indeed the 
new conditions demand change of some sort. Moral insight, 
like the manna in the wilderness, spoils if it is kept. Many 
tragedies in home life would possibly be averted if this 
educational condition were realized. How many mothers 
who agonize over wayward sons succeeded in drawing from 
them the secret, nascent thought which later on controlled 
their lives and led them astray.? The boy is bound to 
experiment ; the question is, Shall he experiment alone ? 

There is no reason why the church should not be a great 
clearing house for moral and social experimentation. The 

[295]' 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

Sunday-school lessons, let them be learned never so per- 
fectly and illustrated by cases never so apposite ; the moral 
precepts and directions of the teacher, however forcible and 
clear ; the sermon of the clergyman and the rites of the 
church, all leave the particular experiment that emerges in 
the mind of the individual without direct recognition. To 
say that the application must be left to the individual con- 
science is only partly true. The individual conscience, in 
so far as it is educated, is a result of free, intimate contact 
with other people. Such contact, far from diminishing the 
feeling of causality, increases it, and both are most fruitful 
and effective when some actual scheme about to be carried 
out is the subject of mutual consideration. 

So far as a division of labor in this mutual planning with 
the young can be effected and distributed among the 
school, the church, the home, and other agencies of soci- 
ety, it is probably clear that the school cannot confine 
itself to the merely intellectual. As everybody knows, 
morality as well as intelligence belongs to the whole of 
life, and the school is forced to realize its responsibility in 
this direction. The particular moral questions and propos- 
als for living that arise in the school, however, are natu- 
rally somewhat different from those which arise anywhere 
else, and if the school deals effectively with these, it has 
contributed its share to the education of the conscience. 

It is probably clear that the plans for life suitable to the 
school, if they are to arise from the pupils themselves, or 
are to become their deep possession, cannot be outlined 
beforehand by the wisest executive or board of managers. 
General expectations may be, and doubtless should be, 
expressed as fully and attractively as possible. But if the 

[296] 



THE EDUCATION OF THE CONSCIENCE 

moral action of the individual is to rise to the full causality 
it longs for, just this leading and controlling feature of 
moral life is forced to become selective and experimental. 
It is thus the things that pupils themselves think are suit- 
able to be undertaken as a part of the broadest and most 
educative school life which will give the only basis for the 
highest moral development in connection with the school. 
It is plain that this will vary according to the vitality and 
the previous conceptions of the pupils, the kind of teachers, 
the nature of the material resources, the sentiment of home 
and outside community, or whatever influences may effect 
the experiences and aspirations of the young. Such activi- 
ties as those which have already been described in the 
chapter on self-organized group work will both reveal what 
the nature of these opportunities will be and test the dis- 
tance to which they can carry the moral development of 
those whom they enlist. 

Where conditions are favorable and individuals sympa- 
thetic, plans of conduct, usually associated with a good 
home or a good church, may appear in the school ; but on 
the other hand, where the home and the church are already 
doing their full work, such plans, while showing their influ- 
ence, would probably not be brought bodily into the school. 
Life is to be " regarded as a trust held for the benefit of 
the community," whether in school or church or home. If 
allowed to act and react upon each other through the self- 
organized plans of their members, these social agencies 
would, in all probability, mutually and almost automatically 
supplement each other's activity. It is only when a priori 
dogmatism rules that hard-and-fast demands are made 
that the home and the school must do this, the church 

[ 297 ] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 

that ; and since the church and the home have already won 
a certain measure of self-direction for their members, it is 
the school which suffers first, although not necessarily last 
or most. 

The flower and fruit of the moral life is self-organized 
cooperative production for the service and upbuilding of 
human beings. Let the opportunity for such work once be 
blighted or impaired, and the whole subordinate structure 
of drill, discipline, and obedience becomes but a carcass of 
tyranny and oppression. The moral life, like the beautiful 
Spiraea of our meadows, rooted often in marshy soil, builds 
up, through dark and sunny days, its leafy ladder towards 
the sky, and finally unfolds its white and spiral flower, full 
of sweetness, to every breeze. But let the growing bud at 
the center be cut out at any stage in its growth, and the 
whole supporting stem withers and dies, as if it knew itself 
to be but a standard bearer for the germinating flame with 
which it blossoms on the world. 



[298] 



INDEX 



Abbotsholme, 45 

Abbott, Lyman, 290 

Ants, group on, 190 

Arithmetic, 135 

Arithmetic, experiments in, 194 

Art and economics, 278 

Art and sex, 273 

Art and work, 238 

Art museum, 278 

Arts and crafts, 262 

Attic, parable of the, 263 

Authority, 50 

Barnes, Earl, 261 

Bathing, rules for, 47 

Bergson, 78 

Bird's nest, lesson on, 187 

Blame, 288 

Book binding, group for, 108 

Bosanquet, 22 

Brain building, 244 

Bucher, 33 

Causation, personal, 284 

Child study, 261 

Civilization, development of, 1 1 

Clark, Lotta, 150 

Clay modeling, case of, 137 

Concept, 205 

Conscience, 281 

Consciousness, form of, 10 

Cooking, 87, 107 

Correlation, 28 

Course of study, Dewey's, 91 

Crowd psychology, 10 

Decoration Day, P^ay of, 125 
Degeneration of race, 44 
Democracy, 54 
Dewey School, 78 
Discipline, 13, 50, 80, 82, 86, 94 
Discussion, value of, 294 
Division of labor, 238 
Drawing books, 260 



Durkheim, 93 
Duties, 283 

Economic strain, 70 

Egoism, 287 

Elocution, 215, 221 

Emotion, 226 

Envy, 288 

Ethical Culture School, 102, 232 

Ethics, 281 

Examinations, 27, 163 

Expectation, 209 

Expression, 222 

Eye-mindedness, 199 

Fear and art, 270 
Fear and literature, 224 
Fleming, Martha, 232 
Force, 18, 64, 112 

Foreign language, 52 ; group on, 
141 ; reading of, 200 

George Junior Republic, 58, 85 
Golden rule, 213 
Grotesque, the, 270 
Group work in science, 156 
Groups, going to pieces of, 17 ; self- 
organization of, 102; social, 15 

Hall, G. Stanley, 224 
Haney, Dr. J. P., 261 
Harris, W. T., 199 
Haymaking, rules for, 49 
Herbartianism, 185 
History, class in, 142, 150 
Honor, motive of, 44, 70 
Hull, Dr. Wm. I., 59 

Idealism, 73 

Impressionism, 262 

Imperatives, 282 

Independence, 117, 192 

Independent thinking, 13 

Indian and the Hunter, play of, 122 



[299] 



SOCIAL EDUCATION 



Individual, rights of, 19 
Individualism, 14 
Interest and expectation, 209 
Interest and production, 251 
Interests, 29, 30, 37, 53, 86 
Isolation, 82 

Jenks, Jeremiah, 43 

Kiln, 26 

Kindergarten, 31 
Krauss, Franz, 44, 256 

Language, as social, 205 ; spoken, 

201 ; written, 207 
Leadership, 98, 257 
Leadership, proportion of, 119 
Liberty, 19 

Lincoln, Dr. W. F., 73 
Lloyd, H. D,, 213, 238 
Loyalty, 50 
Lukens, Dr. Herman, 261 



Manny, Frank, 102 

Manual arts, 237 

Manual arts and dramatizing, 245 

Manual training, 28 

Marking, 168 

Mill, J. S., 7, 78 

Moral constraint of group, 15 

Motor reaction in reading, 214, 243 

Mushrooms, lesson on, 181 

Myth, 183 

Myths, 226 



Obedience, 7, 16, loi 
Old Pipes and the Dryad, the play 
of, 146 



Patsy a7id Laura, P^^^y of, 234 

Payment by results, 27 

Photography group, 114 

Planning by pupils, 133, 135 

Play, 22 

Post-office group, 128 

Pragmatism, 79 

Primitive people, 31 

Printing group, 104, 127 

Psychology, 3 

Purpose groups, 76, 100 



Ray system, 74 

Reading, 90, 199, 207; lesson on, 

208, 210; social basis of, 215; 

class in, 218 
Reasoning, 170; as instinct, 178; 

age for, 178; as social, 192 
Recitation, the, 13 
Reddie, Dr. Cecil, 46 
Responsibility, 16, 20, 137, 282 
Rice, Dr. J. M., 37 
Richardson, Elizabeth M., 277 
Roundness of earth, 179 
Rousseau, 30 

Scholarship, 165; defects of, 79, 80 

School, experimental, 79, 80 ; as a 
cause, 6, 8, 15, 21 ; as an effect, 6, 
8 ; as a prophecy, 2 ; tests for 
the, 23 ; as organism, 43 ; and 
home, 8 

Schools, professional, 26; second- 
hand, 12 

Self-control, 51, 57, 74 

Self-government, 75 

Self-organization, 66, 89, 242 

Shaw, Clara, 234 

Sleeping Beauty, The, play of, 115 

Social service, 25, 30, 36 

Society, 84 ; development of, 4 ; 
organization of, 1 5 

Speech of child, 202 

Spencer, Herbert, 93 

State, the, 17 

Steam, lesson on, 176, 184 

Stories for children, 228 

Teaching, profession of, 39 
Temptation, 138 
Tools of production, 240 
Trade schools, 253 

University Elementary School, 232 

Voting, 63 



Will, 91 

"Williams, Dora, 156 
Windlass, case of, 174 
Working hypotheses, 171 
Wygant, Elsie, 232 

[300] 



ANNOUNCEMENTS 



AMONG COUNTRY SCHOOLS 

By O. J. KERN 
Superintendent of Schools, Winnebago County, Illinois 



lamo. Cloth. 366 pages. Illustrated, List price, ^ i . 2 5 5 mailing price, ^1.35 



THE author's endeavor in preparing this work has 
been to create a new ideal in the training of the 
country child. 

The book is the result of seven years of very earnest 
thought and hard work in an endeavor to secure for the 
country child his rights so far as an educational opportunity 
is concerned. The country school should have that freedom 
which country life affords. This book has but little to say 
about the mechanics of school management. 

In the training of children and the development of char- 
acter no greater opportunity can be offered than that now 
presented to the teacher in the country school. The author 
hopes that this book will prove suggestive to the teacher and 
school officer who are striving for the spiritualization of 
country life through the medium of the school. He believes 
that a careful reading of its pages will show a practical way 
of interesting the "farm child through farm topics." 

Some of the chapter titles, indicating the suggestions given 
in tiiis distinctly novel treatise, are : 

THE RIGHTS OF THE COUNTRY CHILD 

OUTDOOR ART — BEAUTIFYING SCHOOL GROUNDS 

INDOOR ART AND DECORATION 

A FARMER BOY'S EXPERIMENT CLUB 

THE COUNTRY SCHOOL AND THE FARMERS' INSTITUTE 



GINN & COMPANY Publishers 



ASPECTS OF CHILD LIFE AND 
EDUCATION 

By G. STANLEY HALL, President of Clark University and Professor of 
Psychology, and Some of His Pupils 



izmo. Cloth. 326 pages 



DURING the last twenty years one of the lines 
of research carried on by President G. Stanley 
Hall and students working under his direction, at 
Clark University, has been the psychology of child- 
hood and its applications to education. These 
researches have been published in the University 
periodicals, which are of necessity expensive and 
limited in circulation, and have not, therefore, 
hitherto been available to the general public. The 
object of the present volume, which is to be the 
first of a series, is to make accessible to parents 
and teachers, in somewhat condensed form and 
at moderate price, the results of these researches 
which are now recognized as of fundamental 
importance in all educational work. 

GINN & COMPANY Publishers 

3477 5 



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